


An Unlikely Love

by adriannewhitt95



Category: Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Violence, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-26 07:26:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 40,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/648066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adriannewhitt95/pseuds/adriannewhitt95
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shilo returns to her house after almost a year of running and hiding from the Largo siblings, and finds a certain Graverobber has taken up residence there. Can Shilo put her past behind her and learn to live in the city that destroyed her life? Maybe even fall in love with the man who began the chaos? Rated M for language and later sexual content. SPOILERS INSIDE!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not a Kid Anymore

**Author's Note:**

> I was introduced to "Repo! The Genetic Opera" a last summer and immediately fell in love with the movie and, of course, Graverobber. I began reading a lot of fanfictions involving Grilo (Graverobber and Shilo) that begin directly after the Opera ends, which didn't seem very realistic to me. Though I think Graverobber's character is inherently good, he does not seem like the sort of person who would want to put Shilo back together when she's a crying catatonic mess, nor do I think he would feel obligated to. If a relationship developed between these two, I think it would have to happen after Shilo has toughened up a little and seen more of the world than what's outside her window. Therefore, this story begins almost a year after the Opera.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 1 – Not a Kid Anymore

It was early, very early in the morning, when Shilo Wallace returned to her mother’s grave. It’d been almost a year since she’d visited, almost a year since the Opera that ended her father’s and godmother’s lives, almost a year since the Opera that ended _her_ life. For the innocent, naïve Shilo who had been locked away in her room all her life, wondering about the world outside, died with her father. She was no longer a weak child, believing the lies her father told her and obediently taking her poisoned pills. She was hard and cold now, a partial reflection of Nathan Wallace’s alter ego, the Repoman. You have to be hard and cold when you’re on the run, when you’re hiding in dumpsters and fighting off scum in dark street corners. Shilo may not have repossessed organs, killed for the company, but she’d jabbed her little knife into a rapist’s throat when he jumped her in an alley. She’d killed the GENcops the Largo sibling’s had sent after her, without hesitation, without remorse. It had been almost a year since the hunt began; Amber, Luigi, and Pavi had been angry that their father wanted to give _their_ company over to the daughter of a past affection. They were threatened by the name on the will he had never had the chance to sign.

They had bribed the limo driver who took her away from the Opera House that day to take her to a _safe house_ , where they would be waiting _._ Shilo had only discovered this because, as soon as she was a few miles from the Opera House, she’d knocked out the driver, searched his pockets for credits, and fled. He had still been carrying the envelope containing the bribe and Amber Sweet’s detailed instructions.

But the woman, for she had seen too many things to continue being called a girl, had been running for too long. She’d read in the Evening Slice a week ago that Luigi had finally lost his temper with his twisted brother and murdered him, and Amber had overdosed on zydrate and never woken up from one of her many surgeries a month before that. And with only one Largo sibling left to haunt her, Shilo Wallace decided it was time to step out of hiding.

Per her decision, she stood outside of the stone building that housed her mother’s body, no longer willing to squat in the damp, darkness by Marni Wallace’s grave. No, she stood alone in the faint morning light, breathing in the smoggy air, the bitter acrid scent of death faint, but ever present in the graveyard. Shilo stepped forward to press her hand against the door of the mausoleum, placing her father’s glasses on the stone sill before the wrought iron window. She didn’t know what they’d done with her father’s body, but she thought it was appropriate that he be buried with the woman he loved, even if the only things she had left from him were a pair of broken glasses and a lot of pain.

“I’m sorry Mom. I would’ve come sooner, but I was running from your past,” she whispered to the cracked, dirt encrusted door. She let a single tear slip through her carefully constructed barriers, and then she stepped away. “Goodbye.”

Shilo did what she could to leave the pain and memories that still haunted her, there on the window sill with her father’s glasses, as she walked out of the dingy expanse, not eager for the coming sunrise. She drew the hood of her coat farther over her face and crept west through the shadows, unseen.

She was headed towards her old house. _Hopefully it’s not boarded up and filled with Z addicts and whores,_ Shilo thought, not looking forward to dealing with them if, in fact, it was. Actually, she didn’t really care if the house was trashed or boarded up; she wasn’t going there out of sentiment. That house had been her prison for seventeen years, and she didn’t need or want to relive the memories. What she wanted, were the weapons, medicines, and articles of clothing held inside, and if the building was filled with addicts and whores, she would have a harder time obtaining these items.

She hadn’t been back to her prison since she’d fled it to go to the Opera that night for her cure. _Cure,_ she mused sarcastically, pursing her chapped lips at the thought. It had been too dangerous to return after that, the Largo siblings would surely guess that she’d go there. But, as she was out of hiding, and planning to confront the remaining child of Rotti Largo anyway, it didn’t matter. If she wanted to survive, her best bets were inside that house.

Shilo rounded the corner, and there it was. Boards covered the windows and doors and a few “NO TRESPASSING” signs had been stapled to the ornate, front door, but the haunting house was still standing, looking virtually untouched. She strode around to the back door, wary of the noise her boots made on the concrete. She preferred soft grass, quieter. She easily used her switch blade to pry out the nails sloppily boarding the entrance, placing the boards in a neat pile behind an overgrown rose bush as she did so. When the boards were all removed, she simply turned the handle and stepped inside.

The house was dark, dimmer than she’d ever seen it, but the dark no longer bothered her. The hiding prayed for the dark, fleeing from the sun and its garish light, preferring the cool, comforting dark to shadow them away. It wasn’t the darkness that unsettled her; it was the eerie, undeniable silence. Every soft, almost soundless step she took sounded like cannon fire to Shilo’s jumpy ears. Her pulse sounded like a bass drum, thudding in her head, as she crept through the kitchen, knife held protectively in front of her.

 _It looks like someone’s been here,_ she thought, eyeing the wrappers and other remains of meals that scattered the counter. When she padded into the hallway, human presence became all the more evident. All of her mother’s holographic pictures had been ripped sloppily from the walls, and there was a pair of her father’s old boots lying muddy by the stairs. _Has someone else been living here?_ Shilo thought, disconcerted. She pulled the dark hood off her face so she could see peripherally, releasing her raven hair (it had grown back after she stopped taking her father’s poison) and letting it fall down her back.

She climbed the stairs, moving almost noiselessly up to the second floor. Her pulse was racing as she slowly pushed open her former bedroom’s door. The old hinges let out a garish, high pitched squeal in protest and Shilo froze.

Down the hall, she heard an audible grunt then a thump as someone rolled out of bed. Her fear leaked adrenaline into her racing veins, and she crept silently to her father’s door, where the noise was coming from, standing beside it, flat against the dark wallpaper, so that she could jump the figure, whoever it was, when they came out. It seemed like an hour she stood there, gripping her knife so tightly she thought her fingers might break.

Then THUMP, the door was shoved open so hard it hit the wall beside it. Shilo didn’t jump, she didn’t scream, she didn’t even breathe. She stayed completely still and silent until she could see the shape of a masculine figure out of the corner of her eye.

She kicked out at his groin, landing a hard, crippling kick right on the figure’s manhood. She heard a knife drop to the floor, not her own. Then she pounced on the groaning man, easily forcing him to the ground. She pressed her switch blade to his throat, ready to slice it open.

“Any last words?” she snarled, her hand tensing around the blade, adrenaline urging here to kill the enemy, the threat.

“Yeah,” the man below her wheezed. “Get the fuck off of me, kid.” That gave her pause. _Kid. Kid?_ she thought, _Why is that so familiar?_ Finally, she took a good look at the man she was straddling, and realized who he was with a start. It was unmistakable really, even in the unlit hallway. The voice should have given him away sooner, but it was the eyes that really made her sure. They had always been a strangely bright hazel color for such a dark, brooding man.

“Graverobber?” Shilo asked in surprise, not moving from where she sat on his abdomen.

“Duh.” The man replied, his black rimmed eyes narrowing slightly in irritation.

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” Shilo rolled easily off of him, still holding onto her open knife, unsure whether it was really safe to put it away.

Graverobber didn’t get up right away, as she expected he would, and it took her a moment to remember that she’d just kicked him so hard between the legs he may never have children, not that she thought he’d particularly _mind_ that part. But yeah, the kicking and pain part, that he probably minded.

She stood awkwardly above him for a few minutes, still trying to wrap her head around the idea of him being there, while he waited for the pain to subside. Finally, he sat up, and Shilo lowered her free hand down to pull him to his feet. He became vertical with a grunt.

“Thanks,” he said snidely.

“You’re welcome,” she retorted, with just as much venom. “Now _why_ exactly are you in my house?” Shilo pushed a piece of night black hair out of her face, still clutching her blade in front of her stomach, wary of the drug dealer she couldn’t quite call a friend. _But he might just be the only almost friend you have on this godforsaken island,_ she reminded herself.

He didn’t answer her question. “Put that away.” He gestured toward the switch blade she still held out protectively, crouching down to retrieve his own knife from the floor, replacing it in one of his many buckled boots. She did as he asked (though it was more of an order) and folded up her blade, putting it back in the satchel at her hip.

She raised her eyebrows at him expectantly, waiting for an answer to her original question. Of course, Graverobber completely ignored her and began walking down the hall to the staircase.

“Where are you going?” Shilo had forgotten how impulsive and reckless the man could be; he was a _grave robber_ after all.

“To get some breakfast. Want some?” he said, not looking back or even pausing in his descent of the stairs, _her_ stairs.

She sighed exasperatedly, following him. “This is _my_ house!” It was true, even though it was also her prison, and she could never again claim it as a home, legally it belonged to her.

“Yeah, and it’s a bit creepy don’t you think?”

“You open people’s graves and stick needles through their skulls to get addictive drugs and you think _this_ is creepy?!”

“Well at least the graveyard people don’t pop up whenever someone walks by,” he responded, clearly referring to her mother’s hollo portraits in the hallway below.

“You ripped those out?” She already knew the answer.

“Yep.”

She laughed harshly, following him into the kitchen, past the wrecked holograph generators. “Good. I always hated those things.”

Graverobber turned for the first time and looked back at her, _really_ looked. He didn’t seem to like what he saw. “What the hell happened to you, kid?”

He was still probing her face with his striking eyes when she answered. “You know what happened.  I think you even knew some of it was _going_ to happen.”

He pursed his dark lips thoughtfully. “Not as naïve as you were, I see. Yes, well, I did have my suspicions about that night.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He made a face. “What good would it have done? You would have gone for your cure no matter what I said.”

Shilo was quiet, admitting silently that he was right. She would have done almost anything then to earn her freedom from the disease. Now that she had it, it was a hollow, bitter thing. Freedom became a fancy word for lost and alone.

“Why are you here?” Of course, she’d already realized the answer to that as well, but she wanted to change the subject. The past was not worth rehashing.

“I’m an opportunist. Not like anyone else was going to squat in the Repoman’s old house, and I needed a place to stay. Kept it fairly clean for you.” He grinned, the first time she’d seen that grin in almost a year. It was both mischievous and sincere, gleeful and wicked.

She grinned back, unable to stop herself from laughing a bit as well. It was just so absurd. She was standing in what was once her pristine little kitchen, talking to a zydrate dealer about how he’d kept her house clean while she was gone, running from people who were concerned she would try to take over GeneCo. Absurd, and yet absurd had become her life. Nothing made sense anymore.

Graverobber turned away from her, busying himself with the preparation of bagels. _He bought bagels?_ Shilo thought, her eyebrows going up in surprised amusement. _What next, popery?_

He smeared cream cheese across both and thrust one at her. Although there was a fair amount of dirt beneath his fingernails and his hands probably still had the residue from last night’s grave robbing on them, Shilo took the bagel and began eating. She hadn’t eaten anything that had not been scavenged from a dumpster in weeks, and she was hungry.

They sat down at the spindly little kitchen table. Graverobber had finished his bready lump before Shilo even took a second bite.

“So, kid, what have you been up to lately?” he asked, as if they weren’t discussing which dumpsters she’d been sleeping in since she fled the GeneCo fortune and her father’s death.

“Oh, you know, running, hiding, dumpster diving, the usual.” She took another bite of the bagel, chewing thoughtfully. He was looking at her strangely again.

“ _You_ went _dumpster diving?_ ” Graverobber seemed thoroughly impressed by this bit of information.

“Well it isn’t like I had much of a choice.” She didn’t understand why he was so pleased by her scavenging for food, but then, he was a very strange man. He seemed to read her mind for a moment, and a broad grin appeared on his face, as if to say, _yes I am a very strange man._

“Why did you come back? Seems like you had it pretty good.” He chuckled lowly.

“I’m tired of running. Two of the Largo siblings are dead, and I’m going to make sure the third joins them very soon.” She stared intently at the floor as she said this, her jaw set.

“Are you sure you’re ready for that?” Graverobber’s deep voice held an unusual amount of concern. It unsettled Shilo.

“Well I damn well better be, because he’s going to come and try to fucking kill me either way!” she spat. “That’s what those bastards have been doing ever since I left!” she shouted, rising from her chair and flinging the half eaten bagel across the room.

“I see someone has some unresolved issues.” Shilo shot him a dark warning look, and he rolled his eyes at her. “Look kid,” he started.

“AND STOP CALLING ME KID!” she bellowed, lunging at him.

He stood; easily catching her wrists before her tiny fists could get anywhere near his pale white face. He held her there, careful not to squeeze too tight and hurt her. She jerked and thrashed and tried to get away from him, but he just sat there, calmly holding onto her wrists, until she stopped struggling.

“You done?” he asked sarcastically, dropping her hands pointedly.

“No.” She glared up at him, her dark brown eyes angry and seething, her black hair wild and disheveled.

He walked away, evidently not caring if she wished to try to hit him again or not. She followed him angrily into the living room, where he was yanking open the fireplace.

“Where are you going?” she asked again, registering the absurdity that she even cared.

“To do my fucking job,” he replied, shooting her one last brooding look before he disappeared into the lair below.


	2. Goodbyes from Ghosts

 Chapter 2 – Goodbyes from Ghosts

Graverobber was not the kind of man who cared about others. In his line of work, caring was not only unnecessary, but dangerous. You get attached to your clients, and the next day you find them dead in a gutter, _especially_ with the Repomen running rampant slashing out people’s innards. So Graverobber didn’t care, he didn’t get attached. When he offered help to others, like he’d done for Shilo, it was either to repay a debt (getting her caught in the graveyard) or because he wanted something. Of course, Graverobber admitted to himself that helping Shilo those few times was more out of curiosity than any sense of honor. Her innocence fascinated him; he’d never met anyone that naïve and sheltered. She was a stark contrast to everything his life was, and that made her something worth paying attention to, if only for a short time. He felt no sorrow when she disappeared; he didn’t get attached.

And that, though it led to a lonely and gloomy existence, worked for him. He was happy with things the way they were; he was the submarket, a provider of a much needed commodity. Therefore, _he_ was needed, and Graverobber liked that. He liked that the addicts waited for hours in the damp alley by the Zydrate Support Network for him to show up with his little glass vials. He liked how the scantily dressed women fawned over him, caressed his clothes, his face, his hair, for a hit of Z. He liked it even better when one of them would show up without any credits to drop in his pockets, when one of them suggested an adjacent alley for some _privacy._ He’d liked it most when that one was Amber Sweet, but that was another story entirely.

Graverobber was happy with his job. He was happy before Shilo came, after she left, and he was determined to remain happy now that she’d returned. But that look on her face kept popping up in his head. Her delicate, innocent features pulled apart in a snarl as she launched herself at him, trying to claw out his eyes. He wasn’t scared of her, God no. He knew she wasn’t strong enough to hurt him, but the old Shilo would never have had the guts to try, not for something as imbecilic as calling her “kid.” The woman that had returned, wearing the little girl’s face, was drastically different from the child who left, yet she still looked haunted by the same ghosts, the same anger. This bothered Graverobber for some reason.

_She used to be so…innocent, pure,_ he thought, grimacing at the thought of her new harsh expressions, and that cold, mocking laugh.

“Zydrate! Get your zydrate!” he announced sarcastically to the addict filled alley, imitating the ways of the average street vendors.

He handed out the blue vials quickly, stuffing the credits they tossed at him into his many pocketed coat.  Today, he wanted to do things fast, no time for trading favors in the side alley. Graverobber knew it was dangerous for him to be out on the streets when Luigi Largo learned Shilo had come out of hiding; he was sure the badly tempered man knew of his brief association with the girl and would likely come looking for him, wanting information on her return. The drug dealer was no hero, if Luigi found him, Graverobber would cough up what he knew with little persuasion. He may be fascinated by the girl, and distressed by her change of character, but that didn’t mean he had any intentions of getting himself killed to protect her and her stupidity. Yet he did not _want_ to be the one to get Shilo killed, so he decided to avoid that situation if at all possible.

The last zaddict skittered away, their precious blue vial clutched between filthy palms, and Graverobber left his alley, pockets loaded, to find a place to lie low until things had blown over.

Of course, Shilo wasn’t going to let him do that. Shilo had decided it would be an excellent idea to come out of her safe little house to find him. Shilo had decided to come out during the day, her black hair and easily recognizable face boldly uncovered. Graverobber could have hit her when he rounded the corner and saw her standing there in broad daylight, arms crossed, dressed from head to toe in black: tight black t-shirt, black leather jacket, scruffy black jeans, black combat boots, black satchel and huge black sunglasses, like those would make her identity any less obvious.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he exclaimed angrily, realizing that she was not nearly as smart as he’d given her credit for. “You’re gonna get us both killed!” He grabbed her arm, easily wrapping his long fingers all the way around, and yanked her back into the alley.

“I came looking for you,” she explained, seemingly irritated by Graverobber’s hand tugging her farther into the darkness of the Zydrate Support Network street.

“Congratulations, you found me,” he shot back, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He let go of her arm, having drug her back behind his favorite dumpster, so they’d be safe for the moment.

She rolled her eyes at him, removing her sunglasses, an exasperated sigh escaping her lips. “Thanks, I just followed the smell.”

He barked out a short laugh, still disconcerted by her rough new attitude. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say next. Did he send the kid away or try to hide her from Largo? _Just leave,_ his instincts whispered, ignoring the faint pangs of his small, abused conscience.

“What do you want, kid?” he asked tiredly, sinking down to the filthy concrete, his back against the dumpster.

Shilo stood over him, a scowl marring her beautiful face. “I told you to stop calling me that. I’m not a kid anymore.”

_Well she certainly doesn’t_ look _like a kid,_ he thought, his eyes appraising her slender form. She looked far less sickly and much more attractive than she had before, but then… “You’re seventeen. You’re a kid.”

She laughed harshly sliding down to sit beside him. “I’m eighteen.”

This startled him a bit. In his mind, Shilo was a perpetually innocent, naïve seventeen year old girl. Now it seemed along with her age, everything else about her had changed. Graverobber was one of those people who prided himself in handling change very well, you had to be able to adapt when you lived a life like he did, but Shilo’s case was unusual. She’d become the comparison, the pristine object that all could be held accountable to because none were as pure as she, then the dove had been released from her cage. Now the dove sat beside him, just another raven. He was both utterly impressed and completely unsettled by this alteration. It was like someone had done surgery on her soul and they’d removed all the most interesting parts. Now she was dark and hollow, just like everyone else.

He grunted. “Eighteen huh? Some birthday I bet. Dumpster dive for a cake?” His snide voice covered his confusion easily. It was hard for people to tell what you were really thinking when you were being cruel. They only saw the cruelty.

But Shilo didn’t flinch. “Yeah,” she responded, her voice devoid of color. “It was awesome.” She had a faraway look in her eyes, like she was thinking of happier birthdays, birthdays where her father was present to tell her how proud he and her creepy dead mother were of her. Graverobber guessed those were probably some of the best memories she had of life, and even those were twisted.

But Graverobber had himself to think about, and he knew he didn’t have room in his dark heart to care about another person. So, he stopped pitying her, remembering the trouble she could get him in. “So, _Shilo,_ are you trying to get me killed on purpose or is that part just an idiotic oversight?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I came to say goodbye.”

“Goodbye?” This was the last thing he expected from her. People never cared enough to say goodbye to him. He was just the submarket, just the robber and the dealer. He watched from afar the mistakes and plights of others, rarely getting involved or caring to. The heroes never spoke to him before making their epic mistakes; he was just the grave robber.

“Yes, and to ask you,” Shilo added hesitantly, pushing a few credit into his hand, “In case I don’t see you again, if you ever find my father’s body, to put it with my mother’s. They should be together.” She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “And, to say thank you, for getting me caught in the graveyard that night and for everything else. You may be a crazy, sick bastard but your screaming that night started me on the path to my freedom,” her voice turned darker, “for whatever the hell that’s worth.”

“You’re going after Luigi,” he stated, still a bit confused by the whole conversation, but covering it well. He could see the fear in her eyes, but he forced himself not to comment on it. _Best not to get more involved,_ he told himself.

“Yeah,” she answered, though she knew it wasn’t a question.

“Try not to get killed, kid,” he said, though it was pretty obvious that she thought she was going to. He stood, dusting off his pants and offering her his hand. She growled, glaring up at him menacingly. “ _Shilo,”_ he corrected with an eye roll.

She allowed him to pull her to her feet. “Do my best,” she muttered back.

Graverobber watched as Shilo Wallace walked out of his alley for what was likely, the last time, and tried not to let that bother him.


	3. Perfectly Justified Stabbings

Chapter 3 – Perfectly Justified Stabbings

Luigi Largo was one of the least appealing people Shilo had ever seen. She was quite certain that the man oozed violence, though she wasn’t sure if that was even possible. He had a vicious grin, and he tended to spit and snarl when he was angry, which was almost always. The few times she had seen Luigi, she wished she hadn’t, and she did not relish having to see him again that night. At least this time, she too was armed.

She’d bribed a homeless man (the homeless always know much more than anyone would think) to find out where the last Largo sibling lived. She now hovered in front of a vast and hideous painting of said Largo, trying to decide where in the spacious apartment to hide. Everything around her was plush and expensive: red velvet couches, an ivory keyed grand piano, carpet so thick she could lose her keys in it…and so on and so on. The man had absolutely no eyes for decorating, so it all looked like a very pricey disaster, with clashing colors and weird furniture arrangements cluttering and confusing the rooms. Shilo found what she was certain was Luigi’s personal bedroom (it had an assortment of knives hanging on the wall as well as more photos of the ferocious pig than in any of the other rooms) and snuck into the adjoining bathroom, her switchblade in one hand and one of her father’s Repoman blades in the other.

Shilo assumed that a man who murders so many people must have to take a shower every night to wash off the blood of all of his victims, and therefore she’d catch him at his weakest hour, when he was least likely to have a weapon on him. It was quite a brilliant plan, and she silently congratulated herself on being so sneaky and underhanded. Graverobber would be proud. Perhaps she’d tell him about it if she survived.

_If, I should really think when,_ she told to herself. Shilo wasn’t all that convinced (even with her clever plan) that she could make it out of this situation alive. Even if she managed to kill Luigi, what about the GENcops that he could summon at a moment’s notice? Wouldn’t they be alerted if he was attacked? And why didn’t this man have a high tech security system like they had at GeneCo? It’s not like he didn’t have the money. _Maybe he does have one and I just can’t see it. Maybe he’s watching me right now._ Shilo’s paranoia caused her to look fearfully around the bathroom as she climbed into the black glass, walled shower, shaking a little in fear. She didn’t see anything suspicious, except for a rather disgusting looking razor, and that surely wasn’t watching her, it was just gross.

_Stop it! You’re just freaking yourself out. Deep breaths. Deep breaths._

Shilo stood in that shower, stock still, trying to breathe deeply, for what must have been several hours. She was too scared to actually move, even when her muscles began to cramp and ache. She was frozen.

Finally, she heard a door open then slam shut again, and that snapped her out of her episode. She flexed her fingers around her two blades, preparing to strike, listening to the man go about his business inside the apartment. Just as she suspected, after about ten minutes of shuffling about, Luigi headed for the bathroom. Having memorized the layout of the apartment before he arrived, Shilo recognized when he entered that he was turning towards the toilet, which was directly beside the shower facing the adjacent wall. She held her breath, listening as he unzipped, hearing the stream hit the water. It was almost comical how important these details were to her, but she knew if she quickly slid open the glass door, she could easily slit his throat from that angle.

Shilo hesitated just a fraction too long though, heard the man zip back up his fly, and grimaced at how close she’d gotten…Then the water in the sink started running. Shilo didn’t think, she just acted, throwing herself out of the shower and flinging herself toward the evil man. The sink was directly across from the shower, and he was facing away from her washing his hands, with no mirror to reveal her attack, an easy target if she could kill him before he heard her approach. But he did hear her, and the vicious man spun around, a look of genuine surprise on his cruel features.

He had a knife in his hand in almost the same instant as he registered her existence, and she froze, her blades still outstretched. Luigi Largo laughed maniacally, taking an exaggerated step towards her, his ferocious grin wild and frightening. But Shilo had forgotten for a moment who she’d become. She’d forgotten the girl who had come here poised to kill, and become the girl who cowered in fear of any and everything. She’d forgotten, then she’d remembered. For who she was now was not pretty, or safe, or healthy, or clean. She was garish and rogue and poisonous, but you become what you must to survive.

Shilo thrust her switchblade into Luigi Largo’s stomach, adrenaline pounding a steady rhythm in her ears, her pulse quickening as she twisted it cruelly, glaring defiantly into the man’s eyes. She remembered the second weapon she held and dangled that in front of the last Largo sibling’s face, taunting him with death. His evil face was twisted into a silent, agonized scream, but Shilo didn’t flinch at his pain. She raised her father’s blade and shoved it through Luigi’s heart, watching as the light in his eyes faded, letting his blood run down her hands, _relishing_ in the agony frozen on his face. She only released her hold on him when she was sure he was gone, allowing his worthless body fall to the floor, sliding off her bloody knives, a lump of lifeless flesh.

It was only then, looking down at her foe’s dead body, her pulse pounding in her head, that she realized the knife was gone from his hand. She looked around, confused…and found it protruding from her side, just below her ribs. She stared at it in horror, suddenly the sweet little girl who never left her bedroom again. She couldn’t remember what you were supposed to do for a knife wound. _You take it out right?_ She thought, her brain getting fuzzy at the sight of her blood running down her shirt onto her thigh. _No, no, you leave it in, at least until someone can stitch it up,_ rationality kicked in.

She still couldn’t feel the blade, which was good. That meant she might make it outside to call for help. _But if you call for help, the GENcops are just going to arrest you and lock you away in a cell for the rest of your miserable life… You have to make it home._ Shilo took a shuddering breath as she had this revelation, finally beginning to feel the pain blossoming out from the wound, pain that adrenaline and shock had momentarily conquered, but wouldn’t keep at bay for much longer.

She _had_ to get home.

 

* * *

 

Graverobber was sitting in her living room, trying not to think of it as _her_ living room, when he heard someone banging on the back door.

_Fuck,_ he thought, _the girl ran and Luigi Largo’s here for his revenge._ That seemed like a sensible course of action to Graverobber, this is how he would have predicted things would turn out. Little girls run, they don’t take on the big bad wolf with their pint size switchblade and hope to win. It made sense for Shilo to chicken out and go back into hiding; it also made sense for Luigi to come here looking for her, since he’d probably heard that she’d been seen near here. The only thing that didn’t make sense, was why would Luigi Largo bother knocking on the door?

Graverobber approached the door warily, pulling his knife out of his boot before he got too close. But as he drew nearer, he realized the knocking was coming from the bottom of the door, like some sort of animal was trying to break through by throwing itself repeatedly against the base. Curiosity overcame him, and he opened the door a tiny crack. What he saw was _not_ good.

“Kid? What the fuck!” he exclaimed, crouching down beside her on the stoop. She was collapsed on the concrete by the back door, covered in her own blood, clutching at the knife sticking out of her right side. The reason the banging was coming from the bottom was because she couldn’t sit up enough to use anything but her head to get his attention, and both of her hands were occupied trying to keep the knife from moving inside her and causing more damage. “Oh, shit,” he commented, seeing how much blood was on her clothes and on the ground below her.

He needed to take her inside, they would draw too much attention out there, but he wasn’t sure it was safe to move her. Then remembering her father’s lab equipment down in the lair, he decided that was the only option. “Okay, kid, I’ve gotta move you inside so I can fix you up. Hold tight.”

“S-stop c-calling m-me k-k-kid,” she gasped, her brown eyes wide and full of pain. He clenched his jaw, knowing picking her up as he planned to do would only cause more. But there was no other option. He slid his strong arms under her shoulders and knees, trying to jostle her as little as possible, and gingerly pulled her off the ground.

She screamed an earsplitting, heart breaking cry of pain when he picked her up, shifting the knife, and it was everything he could do to keep holding onto her after that, with her crying and whimpering and _begging_ him to stop. Finally, they reached the couch, and he laid her bloody form back down, rushing to his bag for some zydrate. He loaded the gun and pressed it to her ribs, just above the knife. She tried to push him away, protesting weakly, but it was too late, he’d already pulled the trigger and the glow was in her veins. The affect was instantaneous. She immediately began relaxing, her eyes glazing over with drug induced relief.

“Oh thank you…thank…you,” she sighed, as he cut off the bottom of her blood soaked shirt.

“Careful, kid, you’re beginning to sound like my clients,” he snickered, always able to laugh in difficult situations. Shilo was too high to be mad that he’d called her kid again.

“Don’t care. ‘S wunnerful,” she slurred, her eyelids fluttering sleepily.

 “No kid, don’t go to sleep,” he ordered before sprinting down into Nathan’s lair for a needle and some surgical thread. When he returned, he was ready to remove the knife. “I’m taking out the knife, now, kid,” he said, making sure she was still awake. Graverobber didn’t know much about medicine, but he was pretty sure it was bad to let someone lose consciousness after they’d already lost so much blood. They might not wake up. Plus, he didn’t know if she had other, less obvious wounds that needed to be cleaned and bandaged as well.

“Mkay,” Shilo mumbled, struggling with her heavy lids.

Graverobber knew he had to finish up quick, before she passed out. He gripped what he was sure was one of Luigi Largo’s blades in both hands and pulled gently up, casting the offending object away as soon as it was out of her flesh. Shilo didn’t move the entire time. “Kid, knife’s out… Kid?” Graverobber looked up from her wound in alarm, realizing the girl had become unconscious. “Damn it!”

He grabbed the surgical thread in desperation, knowing he had to stitch her up to stop the bleeding. He didn’t know much about sewing, he repaired his clothes when they tore, but he usually did a pretty crappy job. And this was someone’s skin, which was not only vastly different, but was also ironically horrifying to the man who robbed people’s graves for a living. But Graverobber did his best, closing up the wound and covering it with a mound of surgical tape and gauze, hoping the knife didn’t hit anything major.

He checked her pulse; it seemed relatively steady. He stuck his ear by her mouth; she appeared to be breathing. He cut off the rest of her ruined clothes and checked for more cuts; there weren’t any. Then, all he could do was sit and wait and see if she lived. Instead, Graverobber spent the whole night pacing worriedly, stopping at regular intervals to glare at the far wall, angry at himself for being worried.

It was a long night for both of them.


	4. The Secrets You Keep

Chapter 4 – The Secrets You Keep

_I’m not wearing any clothes,_ was the first thought she had when she awoke, her eyelids sticky and reluctant to move. _Why am I not wearing any clothes?_

She forced her dark eyes open, noting the dull throbbing in her side, the rough blanket pooling across her stomach, and the warm shape lying against her thigh while her dilated pupils adjusted. Looking about, she realized the shape on her leg was the side of Graverobber’s face, having fallen against her in what appeared to be a very uncomfortable nap. His eyes looked unusually sunken and dark, and a line creased his brows in unconscious anxiety. Shilo couldn’t fathom what would make the eccentric, oddly optimistic drug dealer look so grieved, but she assumed if it worried Graverobber, it was going to be bad for the both of them.

“Graverobber?” she whispered, spreading the blanket out so that it covered her exposed body. “Graverobber?”

The man jerked awake, lunging away from the couch in an elaborate barrel roll. In less than a second, he was across the room, panting. She watched as his eyes unclouded and he recognized her.

“You’re alive,” he breathed, his voice far more vulnerable than she’d ever heard it. Shilo was surprised by the amount of relief in his gaze; she’d never considered them close enough to merit that level of caring. _But then, I don’t know much about normal relationships,_ she thought, recalling her father.

“I’m not wearing any clothes,” she pointed out awkwardly, uncomfortable with the possibility she felt for a tender moment.

Graverobber grinned impishly, relaxing Shilo instantly with his change in attitude. “No, I’m sure if you were lying there naked, I would have noticed it.”

“I’m only wearing a bra and panties!”

He chuckled darkly, swaggering over to her. “I’d be happy to help you take them off, if that bothers you.”

Shilo sighed exasperatedly, giving him a withering look. “What happened to my clothes?”

“Before, or after, I ripped them off with my teeth?”

“Graverobber!” Shilo may have preferred horny over caring, but she wanted information as well.

The man sobered, letting the cocky smile fall from his face. “I had to cut them off of you so I could treat that knife wound in your side and check for others, since you passed out before you could tell me anything.” He crouched down beside her, eyes too serious again. “You scared the shit out of me, kid.”

She refused to look back at the hazel eyes boring into her own, and changed the subject. “How’d I get a knife wound?” she asked, unable to remember much about the night before, except that she’d been very scared and seriously injured.

“You don’t remember?”

“It’s all a little fuzzy, like when I passed out in the graveyard. I’m not sure which parts were real and which were dreams.” Shilo grimaced, reminded again of her liar of a father.

“So you show up in the middle of the night with a knife in your side, expect me to stitch you up, then ask _me_ to tell _you_ how it got there. Women,” Graverobber scoffed, his voice snide. But he overdid it just a touch; Shilo heard the worry beneath his words, the note that made his sarcasm a careful lie. She’d been lied to enough to understand the difference now.

“This is _my_ house,” she pointed out, a little irritated that he was lying to her. “If I want to show up here in the middle of the night, covered in blood, that’s my business.”

“And keeping it your business would’ve left you bleeding to death on the back stoop!” he bellowed, towering over her, his lips pulled back in an angry snarl. He looked like a stray cat, hissing at the owner of a trash can he frequented. _He is a stray,_ Shilo thought, looking up at the seething man. _And you took him in… But I’m a stray too. It seems I’ve always been a bit of a stray. And he took me in._

But that line of thinking was too deep for her to get into at the moment; she had an angry drug dealer leering over her, his face twisted in fury.

When Graverobber saw that her attention was on him again, he smiled sarcastically. “Oh, no, don’t bother paying attention to the man who saved your life. Don’t worry, next time, I won’t fucking bother.” His eyes were dark and cold, his jaw set, his mouth tight and harsh. Shilo hated the look on his face; it was the complete opposite of everything the cheerful, energetic creep usually was.

“Graverobber,” she sighed, an apology in her eyes. “Please, don’t look at me like that.”

The man softened, finding himself unable to go against her wishes when she looked so weak and helpless, only taking up half of the couch with her small form. “Next time, you’re paying for your painkillers,” he told her, silently accepting her apology,

“You drugged me?” Shilo exclaimed, suddenly not so willing to cooperate. She hadn’t taken a thing since she found out what her father had been doing to her, unable to swallow pills, never daring to shoot up. She was as clean as she’d always wished she was, back when she’d been locked in that room. She was no longer infected, and she certainly wasn’t going to do anything that would risk going back there.

“You were screaming. I had to do something.” He was very matter of fact about it, but Shilo thought she saw a flash of pain in his eyes as he remembered. “If I recall, you thanked me quite _fervently_ afterwards.” He raised an eyebrow suggestively, smoothly changing the subject.

“I can’t believe you’re making dirty jokes about having to drug me so you could bandage my _knife wound_ ,” she laughed, unable to keep a straight face while he was looking at her like that.

He shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s what I do.”

“Besides the drug dealing and grave robbing of course.”

“Of course.”

She shook her head amusedly, trying to stifle the reoccurring smile that he somehow always managed to cause. It was like a medical condition, the inability to control her face around him. With everyone else she could be a stone, but not with the one person who was actually watching her emotions, no with him she was a resentfully open book. _Irony._

Then another thought struck her, as the clouds in her head began to dissipate, revealing the details of the past night. _Luigi._ “Did I kill him? Is he dead?” Shilo asked frantically, suddenly aware of how unsafe she was, even if she’d succeeded. The GENcops would not have a hard time finding her there. _Hell, there’s a trail of blood leading straight to me_ , she thought.

“Yeah, it’s all over the papers. Found in his bathroom floor they say,” he grinned at her approvingly. “I went back and cleaned up your trail, nailed the door shut again; they shouldn’t look here for you.” Graverobber read her mind, once again, far too perceptive for his own good, and definitely too much to be trustworthy. _But I do trust him, for some unknown reason… He_ did _save my life…_ _But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a hidden agenda…_ Shilo argued with herself.

“What do you want?” she blurted, instead of the “thank you” that was on her lips.

“A bottle of liquor, unlimited zydrate I don’t have to harvest, a dog… But that’s not what you meant.”

“You know what I mean,” she responded, committing to her verbal misstep.

He cocked an eyebrow curiously. “So I’m a mind reader now?”

“You were always a mind reader.”

He nodded, assenting that this was probably true. “You want to know my ulterior motive? I don’t have one. I just want a decent place to stay and keep my stash.”

“You saved my life for a place to stay?” Shilo didn’t understand; in this new world of lies and secrets everyone had to have a hidden reason for kindness, especially, sketchy drug dealing grave robbers. And “a place to stay” was obviously a poorly crafted excuse. They both knew that she couldn’t kick him out, even if she wanted to, so he already _had_ that.

“I saved your life because I didn’t want to see you dead. That’s it. End of story. Say thank you and we can both move on with our lives.” His voice was tight and testy, another thin lie on top of untold fears. _So the secret is the motive,_ Shilo realized, linking together his strange behavior. He was hiding something from her, something she was acutely close to discovering. Something that had to do with his strange protectiveness and unusual amount of caring.

Shilo prayed he, too, wasn’t a secret Repoman. That turn of events would just be too much for the abused young woman.

“Thank you,” she whispered in response, caught up in the horrors of the secrets her friend could be keeping. 


	5. Safe

Chapter 5 – Safe

Graverobber lay on her sofa, staring up at the ceiling, his dark lips set in a pinched line. Well, he was involved now, too involved, more involved than he wanted to be, than was safe. But Luigi was dead, and people were celebrating in the streets, rejoicing at the end of the reign of a monster of a man. So he was safe from that villain at least.

He was safe…because of her?

That was a puzzling concept. Wasn’t he, the strong, arrogant male supposed to slay the dragon and win the heart of the captured princess, locked away in her tower? That was the theatrical version of the story. Yet, even when she had been locked away, he’d done little to save her. She was safe because her father, in whatever sick or twisted way, loved her, and she was safe because she was strong. Shilo was a survivor.

But he’d saved her life, hadn’t he? He carried her in and sewed her up. She survived the knife because of him. _You could have gone with her, fought for her, taken that knife yourself,_ his conscience whispered.

“Yeah, and then we’d both be dead!” he exclaimed aloud, startling himself. He hoped Shilo, nestled in her upstairs bedroom, had not heard him.

Yet even with his anger, he could not deny that a hero would have done just what the beaten little voice in his head suggested. If he was a hero, he would have insisted on coming with her that day in the alley, he would have slain Luigi Largo and stomped on his artificial lungs. But he wasn’t her, or anyone’s, hero. Graverobber was just a man, a man who watched and waited and stayed out of the line of fire.

_Guys like me don’t…can’t…_ But he refused to think the phrase. Three words. Three words like that could shatter him. Neither of the two broken people harbored in that haunted house could handle any three words of the sort.

 

He rolled onto his side and attempted to sleep, shutting Shilo Wallace out of his mind until he drifted away.

 

* * *

 

“I’ll be back by sunrise,” Graverobber told her the following night, as he prepared to trek across the city to a heavily guarded mass tomb he’d discovered a few weeks prior to Shilo’s return.

She was still confined to her bed, though she desperately wanted to accompany him. She didn’t say why and he didn’t ask. He silently acknowledged her worry with an overly meaningful look. She turned away, fearful, but in a different manner.

“Can’t this wait until I’m back on my feet? Or at least until the GENcops aren’t swarming the streets looking for Luigi’s murderer?” her voice was thick with unsung worries. Graverobber refused to let himself be pleased by that fact.

He smirked at her, disguising his thin joy at her concern for him with sarcasm. “Because bringing the culprit of the crime with me wouldn’t make things more suspicious. Right.”

She grimaced at him, her eyes narrowing in one of her fierce glares. “By the time I’m recovered, they’ll have stopped looking.”

“You and I both know they’re only looking for you so they can thank you for ridding them of that psychopath.” This was strangely true. The GENcops, a slow but honorable bunch, had dropped all charges against Luigi’s killer and had made it well known that they only were searching for the perpetrator to offer them their gratitude as well as a position in their ranks. Some of the lowlifes who already suspected the identity and whereabouts of said hero had left small gifts on the porch of Shilo’s house. They were scattered around her dim bedroom where Graverobber had deposited them, testaments to her glory and proof of her adoring public.

“Right…” Shilo thought for a moment, brightening instantly when she came to her conclusion. “Then bringing me with you would ensure your safety. They won’t kill you because you’d be with me!” She seemed oddly delighted by the idea that her presence alone could stop a GENcop from firing his tranquilizer gun. Graverobber was not convinced, nor did he relish the idea of letting her save him.

“It’ll be weeks before you can hit the streets again. I have to go now, before someone else clears it out.” That wasn’t the only reason he had to go now. Graverobber needed to put some distance between himself and the girl with the jet black hair and haunting brown eyes. He needed some time to think, without her dark house suffocating him with memories of all the things their lives had never been. He needed perspective so that he could remember that they weren’t as alike as he began to believe in the days that followed Luigi’s death. They were different, so very different.

 He steeled himself against her eyes, which widened and pleaded so convincingly. _She doesn’t want to be left here alone, that’s it,_ he told himself, trying to look away from the irises that had him captivated. He was a prisoner to her lower lip, which pouted ever so slightly, and had him unwillingly wondering what it would taste like.

He shook himself, surprised by how far his mind had wandered in the wrong direction. Bantering with her about sex and clothes ripping was one thing, but fantasizing about it, while she was staring at him so beseechingly, well, that was another. Too soon he could get attached to those fantasies, and too soon Shilo and her pouting lower lip could be taken away from him. He refused to let himself become any more ensnared in this…problem, though his eyes were still captured in her gaze.

“Please,” she whispered, putting every ounce of desire, regret, worry, pain and…another four letter word, into that one desperate syllable.

And he broke. 


	6. A Silent Night

Chapter 6 – A Silent Night

His lips crushed hers with a ferocity that was both passionate and cruel. The kiss was almost a revenge, that’s what he wanted it to be, what he wished it was. Graverobber didn’t know if he could handle the alternative. But when she gasped into his mouth, letting her lips move against his, softly, eagerly, and his heart hammered out an exhilarated staccato in his chest, he knew it wasn’t vengeance that drove him to this. He knew it wasn’t that he wanted to make her pay for making him want her.

She twined her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, deepening their kiss, and Graverobber found that he could barely breathe. All these years, trading favors in alleys and this broken young woman with the insane past made him forget how to breathe? He sucked in air through his nose, refusing to part with her lips, fireworks clouding his head.

He’d completely forgotten why he’d come to her room in the first place, forgot his satchel with his empty vials and needles for zydrate extraction sitting on the bedside table, forgot that he’d put on his many buckled and filthy boots before he’d come to tell her goodbye, forgot that she was not only injured, but bed ridden. He pulled her off the bed, into his lap, so that she was straddling him.

Her resulting cry of pain was what ended the kiss.

 

* * *

 

Shilo couldn’t fathom what had just occurred. Her lips were still tingling from it as Graverobber fled the room for bandages.

He had…he’d… _kissed_ her. She was astonished, thrilled, angry, confused, too many emotions swirled in her head, fighting to be prominent. She tried to remember exactly what happened, although her mind was fogging in shock.

He had told her he was going to rob some dangerous mass grave, she had tried to convince him not to go. She’d pleaded… _Pleaded?_ She thought, unsure if she was remembering the situation correctly. _Since when have I pleaded?_ But, reassessing it, she was certain that was what had occurred. She’d been so scared that he was going to die, that she’d have no way to see him again, that she’d actually _pleaded_ with him to stay.

And he’d kissed her.

But that kiss…that was something else entirely! Shilo could scarcely think about it without blushing and breathing raggedly. He’d kissed her like…like…like he was in love with her. She came to this conclusion slowly, weighing each word before she actually said it to herself. _He kissed me like he’s in love with me._

The euphoria of the kiss wore off as the fear of love crept in. Shilo found her breath growing ragged in a completely different way than it had moments ago, the cold grip of terror wrapped itself around her neck and squeezed. He couldn’t be in love with her! He was Graverobber, undependable, dirty, guiltless, her only friend in the world. He couldn’t ruin the only good thing in her life by _loving_ her! She thought the word in disgust. Love is what ruined her life in the first place. Her mother had loved her father, Rotti Largo had loved her mother, and her father had loved her, and look at how well that all turned out.

Love could only end in disaster.

Graverobber came rushing into the room, eyes frantic, a mountain of gauze and bandages clutched to his chest. He refused to meet her eyes as he raised her slightly bloodied shirt and removed the old wrapping. Thankfully, the stitches seemed to be primarily intact; it was the tenuous scab that had formed atop them he’d torn. _Kissing me. He tore open my wound kissing me._ He cleaned and redressed the cut in silence, still refusing to look at her.

She put a pale hand under his chin and raised it so their eyes met. “You kissed me,” she stated, ripping the band-aid off the issue the way he’d ripped off her bloody bandages.

“Yeah…” Silence pervaded the room, seeping between them like thick fog. Their eyes never wavered, like they were staring each other down. Neither of them could remember how to look away, stuck in that silence, unable to move for fear it would break the spell.

A tear trickled out of one of Shilo’s black rimmed eyes. Graverobber caught it with his thumb, breaking their standoff.

“Do you need some Z?” he asked, his voice gravelly and torn. He sounded like he was almost as scared as she was, though he was covering it admirably.

“What?” Shilo didn’t understand why he was offering her drugs. She wasn’t in pain, and he knew she didn’t use them recreationally. He gestured to her newly dressed wound, looking utterly ashamed. She had to bite back a laugh; she never imagined Graverobber could look ashamed. _He thinks he hurt you, that you’re in pain,_ she thought, morbidly amused by how ironically right he was. He’d caused her pain, but not by pulling her on top of him. In fact, ending the kiss by ripping open her wound was probably the least painful thing he could have done. Her pain was much worse, and much more acute, than anything Zydrate could handle. “I’m not in pain,” she lied, referring only to her physical gash. That’s what he was asking about, anyway.

“Then why are you crying?” His disconcertingly hazel eyes met hers again, and she knew he was going to see it, the sad truth, written all over her face.

She tried to hide it, lie. “I don’t…” She couldn’t gather any more words to say. All the words had been bled or kissed out of her. She was void of words. And out of time.

He knew. “I miss my father,” she finally came up with, spitting it out carelessly. It wouldn’t have passed for the truth even if Graverobber had been drugged, yet he nodded his head, accepting her lame excuse silently.

More tense minutes passed in silence.

“I have to go,” he finally said, in a low, regretful voice, once again staring broodingly at her bedspread. He stood, swiftly disappearing from sight, his satchel still perched precariously on her bedside table.

Shilo did not see Graverobber again for two days.


	7. One and the Same

Chapter 7 – One and the Same

Graverobber had not expected her to be awake. He had been sneaking into her room with food while she slept for two days then, unwilling to enter while she was awake, though she’d called for him several times. He was trying to leave her with the impression that he had not heard her, that most of the time throughout those two days he had not been there, but Graverobber had not left the house since that night. He tried to, more than once, but he got as far as her father’s lair and turned back, ashamed of his weakness, his attachment to this flimsy girl.

He cursed himself for letting her get so close. He hadn’t meant to do that. A friend, an amiable acquaintance, that was the most he’d expected, the most he’d _wanted._ But fate had a funny way of turning things around, he realized, because now _all_ he wanted was her. Just her. All the time. It wasn’t even sex that drove him; it was the unwilling, infuriating _need_ to see her face, hear her voice, be near her. He spent those two days torturing himself with images of her lying cold and bloodied on the stoop, having to stitch closed her gaping flesh, the hollow look in her eyes when she talked about her father, the fear on her face when he came back into the room arms full of bandages. It burned him in a way he’d never experienced before, a way he couldn’t explain. But his nature told him that all of this, Shilo, his feelings, the house, everything, was wrong, so he forced himself into agony over it, trying to find the plug to pull, the switch to flip, that would end this need. He didn’t shoot up for two days, knowing that ending one addiction would not be easy while indulging a second.

Yet still, he entered her room that night, the third day since the…incident, a platter full of prepackaged food, bagged sandwiches, and bottles of water in his hands. He sat it on the table beside the loaded Zydrate gun she refused to use, unable to stop himself from sneaking a peek at her silent form. When he looked down, her brown eyes were open and searching; they met his with a sort of obstinacy, as if to say, “Yes, I’m awake. What’re you going to do about it?”

Graverobber concealed his surprise admirably, but he could tell by the pleased look she wore that she knew she’d startled him. “I knew you’d come if I waited long enough,” she commented smugly, rising into a sitting position and snagging a sandwich from the tray.

“You know me, always feeding the starving children,” he responded, slipping back into their old rhythm with some difficulty, trying to forget how he’d changed things.

“I’m not a child,” Shilo said harshly, venom radiating through her words, dropping the sandwich onto the pillow beside her with a scowl. She _really_ didn’t like when he called her that.

Graverobber looked at her bitterly. “No, I suppose you and I are on the same level now, are we?” he asked, sarcasm heavy in each syllable. He was angry at her for making him this unstable; it wasn’t fair that she had it all together.

“I’ve done things you wouldn’t believe!” Shilo bellowed, her eyes bulging in anger.

“Try me,” Graverobber hissed.

Suddenly, she got very quiet, her eyes downcast and forlorn. Her voice was barely above a whisper, which unnerved Graverobber far more than the shouting. He preferred anger, it was familiar, it was safe. Graverobber knew anger; he did not know sorrow, not like Shilo knew it. “I…sold myself. I was starving and I…to a guy on the street. I didn’t even know his name, he just…money for food…” Shilo shuddered with contained sobs, the treacherous tears running down her face anyway.

Graverobber hadn’t expected that. _She was a virgin when she left,_ he realized, pity creeping into his face. She’d lost it to a random guy, probably in a back alley, for a night’s meal. “Shi…”

“No!” she cried. “Don’t feel sorry for me!” He began to protest, but she silenced him. “I can see it on your face! I did what I had to do to survive, just like you, just like everyone. I don’t need or want your pity, but I’m not going to be treated like a child, not after everything. We are equals…or we are…nothing!”

She had been taken by the tears then, her body convulsed with sobs and she keened with small cries of pain. Graverobber didn’t know what to say or do. He wasn’t good at comforting people, it had never been part of his job description. Zydrate comforted people, dulled the pain, but he was just its faithful distributor. He considered shooting her up, but thought the better of it. Drugging her would only make things worse in the long run.

“Shilo?” his voice was pleading, he couldn’t talk her down if she was sobbing, and he didn’t know how to stop the sobbing.

She ignored him, pulling her knees to her chest and burying her face in her arms, soaking her dark shirt sleeves with tears. Graverobber was forced to sit and watch as she emptied herself of sorrow, unable to leave, but unable to move to comfort her. He felt utterly useless and out of place, perched on the edge of her bed, his hands knotted together on his lap.

Finally, Shilo’s shutters slowed and her breath became more level. At long last, she raised her head, eyes puffy and red, stark circles of blood against her pale moon face. She let out a long, shuddering breath.

“I’m sorry I lost it,” she rasped, her voice still thick from crying.

Graverobber shook his head, dismissing her apology. “Sorry I didn’t do anything.” It was a statement applicable to more than that night, a sentence that could link to everything that had ever passed between them. He hadn’t _done_ anything. When he first met her in the graveyard, he’d run while she was captured by her father’s goons. When he brought her to the Zydrate Support Network, he’d taught her all about the Repomen taking Mag’s eyes, but had never told her that he’d heard rumors about her father being one of them. When she went after Luigi Largo, he’d hid in her house, waiting to hear of her death. Sure, he’d stitched her up, but what did that make him? A paramedic? He laughed harshly at that idea. Paramedics weren’t do-ers either; they were just people who had never become surgeons.

Shilo frowned deeply, lines creasing the corners of her mouth, skin still shining with the remnants of tears. “What would…what could you have done?”

He averted his eyes. “More.” He didn’t want to admit to all the things he’d kept from her; he didn’t want to risk alienating the only woman he’d ever…no. He just couldn’t tell her the truth. The truth always ruined everything, as was proven by her own personal tragedy, and he didn’t want to take her back there.

But she seemed hell bent on revisiting her past. “Graves, I…ever since the Opera, and my father… I’m broken. It’s not your fault, it just…is. I’m broken and I don’t know if I can be fixed.”

He met her watery gaze, resisting the urge to touch her cheek. “That makes two of us.”

Shilo looked like she wanted to say something else, but couldn’t force it through her lips. She reached out for Graverobber’s gruff hand. “I… Why did you kiss me?”

He took a long time before answering. “Because I couldn’t stop myself,” he whispered, focusing unerringly on a wrinkle in her bedspread.

Shilo gasped almost inaudibly, though he was sure she’d already known the answer. “Why couldn’t you stop yourself?” Her dark eyes were wide with fear, yet still intently set upon the Z dealer’s sallow face.

But instead of answering the way she’d expected him to, Graverobber’s eyes narrowed in inexplicable anger and he wrenched his hand away, startling her. “Why? _Why?!_ Because YOU had to come back, because YOU had to be so…so…SOMETHING! And NOW! Now I…I can’t…”

Shilo realized then that, even though he was several years older than her, in these matters, they were equally immature. Neither of them knew what to say, how to act, how to stop _feeling._ They were children, no matter how many years they’d lived, or how many strangers they’d slept with, in this, they were children.

“AND,” Graverobber bellowed, “I can’t even leave this cursed house because YOU might get hurt again! But every time I look at you, I…” He trailed off, a pained expression heavy on his dark brow.

Emotionally exhausted and wary of the position Graverobber was putting them in, Shilo sighed heavily. She wanted to work this out, but she didn’t know how. And she was scared to learn. “Can we talk about this in the morning? I’m beat.”

Many emotions crossed Graverobber’s face in quick succession; first, anger, then pain and regret, and finally, relief. He slunk out of her bedroom, turning to look back at her solemnly before softly shutting her heavy wooden door with a muffled click.  


	8. A Box of Memories

Chapter 8 – A Box of Memories

Graverobber was gone when she finally ventured down the creaky wooden staircase. She had guessed as much, assuming that he would finally feel safe leaving her to service his faithful addicts. Their talk the previous night had both drastically changed things and established a fragile sense of normalcy in their strange relationship. Shilo was genuinely glad that he’d gone out, giving them both some much needed air, and her the chance to clean up without risking the drug dealer’s keen eyes. She didn’t trust him to stay away from her shower curtain, not that she had decided whether that bothered her or not. But either way, it was best to just avoid that situation for the moment.

Still unable to move very quickly without pain, Shilo hobbled into the glum kitchen, gathering the supplies for a meager breakfast of dry cereal and a few gulps of flat soda, slowly. On the counter were the remnants of several granola bars and two empty water bottles, indicating Graverobber’s presence. Shilo laughed dryly as she dumped the scraps in the trash, along with her empty soda can. _We haven’t even had sex, and I’m already cleaning up after him,_ she thought, still chuckling. The word “sex” had startled her far more than she’d thought it would, considering their talk last night, and she paled a little at the idea. _Sex with Graverobber?_ She chewed on the thought, trying to wrap her head around it, before casting it aside with aggravation. _Pah! This relationship has barely even begun and I’m already driving myself crazy!_

Forgetting the conundrum, she drug herself back upstairs, refusing to let her mind stray again from the task at hand.

Her bath was warm and relaxing; she’d undone her dressing to find her gash healing cleanly, without sign of infection, and relished the chance to wash off the sweat, blood, and tears that had accompanied it. She spent at least an hour lounging in the long tub, until the water was well past room temperature, and turning chilly. Feeling utterly satisfied, she yanked the rubber stopper free, wrapped herself in a luxurious towel (something her mother had picked out, she was sure), and headed across the hall to her perpetually dim bedroom.

As soon as she shut the door and dropped the soggy towel, she heard the sound of the fireplace being pushed open. Then the familiar, stomping footsteps bounded up the stairs with an uncommon excitement.

“Hey, kid!” he announced, sliding into the hall noisily. “You in there?” He must have heard her responding growl at being called a kid again, because she heard him bark out a short, impatient laugh. “I mean, is the extremely mature Shilo Wallace present?” his voice dripped with sarcastic amusement, as he reached for the door knob.

Hearing it begin to turn, she cried, “NO! Don’t come in here!”

“What? Why?” She heard him jump back from the door like it was electrified.

“I’m…indecent.” She rushed to her dresser and began donning her black lace undergarments, afraid he was going to barge in anyway. After all, the damn lock was on the _outside_ of her door.

Graverobber let out a guffaw of laughter. “That’s all? The way you screamed I thought you’d booby trapped the room or something!” He sounded mildly disappointed that she apparently hadn’t rigged the door, and Shilo smirked despite herself. You could count on Graverobber to be impressed by the least logical things.

“Well…” she paused, looking for a witty retort. “I didn’t want you go into shock and become all… comatose.” It wasn’t exactly witty, but it was the best she could do with her attention split between him and the complex straps of her ribbed, black knit dress.

At this he actually whooped his appreciation, cackling for a solid thirty seconds before he could reply. “Somehow I highly doubt that the sight of your naked body could send me into a coma, something, definitely, but not a coma.” His voice was acutely amused and somewhat aroused, although Shilo tried her best to ignore that part.

“You underestimate the power of my fists!” She finally got her left arm through the dress, though her right was hopelessly entangled and she couldn’t find the head hole. Even so, she chuckled quietly at her own cleverness.

Graverobber also appreciated her conviction, laughing along with her. “You would hit me, simply for appreciating the most complex and beautiful form of art, the human body?” he jested, his hands brushing teasingly along the doorframe. She was sure he was itching to wrench the thin piece of wood aside, though he hid it well.

“I’ve hit you for less,” she reminded him, referring to their reunion, where she’d nearly killed him, thinking he was an intruder, which, come to think of it, he was.

He grunted, acknowledging the blow to his ego grimly. “I had things under control,” he insisted, though not very convincingly.

Shilo’s derisive snort echoed through the hall outside. “Sure.” She drew out the syllable, thickening it with sarcasm.

“That’s it, I’m coming in there!” he announced, eager to regain dominance over their conversation.

The door flew open, banging into the wall with the force that Graverobber had shoved it. He stood in the doorway, a look of restrained anticipation fixed on his angular face. Shilo stood opposite him, at the foot of her bed, her strappy black dress in a heap at her feet. Graverobber’s face changed from anticipation, to surprise, to unabashed disappointment; Shilo was fully clothed.

When she realized that their conversation was not going to keep him out for much longer, she’d foregone the tangled dress, and donned a simple, long sleeved white shirt tucked into her high wasted, black skirt. She’d even had time to brush out her wet, raven hair, letting it fall over her shoulders in little black rivulets. Graverobber frowned deeply, crossing the room to look down at her with his best disapproving glare.

“What’s wrong?” she asked with feigned innocence. He continued to stare moodily at her. “Did someone steal your cookie?” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Did the GENcops confiscate your favorite zydrate gun?” She ran her index finger across his chest, making the brooding drug dealer shiver in desire. She stood on her tip toes to reach his ear, whispering breathily into it, “Did the tooth fairy forget to bring you a quarter?”

Their laughter was instantaneous, coloring the room with pleasant ease, and only fading after they’d both fallen to the floor.

“So what was it you wanted to talk to me about?” Shilo asked casually, pulling herself up and sauntering out of the dim bedroom, fully aware of the hazel eyes glued to her ass.

Graverobber followed her into the hall, picking up a tattered shoebox from the area outside the door as he went. “This,” he presented the rough package to her with a flourish, “Was given to me today by another well wisher. It appears to be filled with pictures of you as a child. _Creepy,_ right?”

Shilo had the box open before he finished talking, gently pulling out an aged photograph from the top of the small pile. Examining it, she gasped. The photograph was of a little girl with dark hair and eyes sitting on the front steps of a house, but the child was not Shilo. Turning the picture over, she found a notation written in an easy scrawl, “ _September 17, 2015…Marni’s Birthday.”_ Shilo nearly fell over in her shock, sagging against the broad man behind her for support.

“Where…how…this is my mother!” she finally cried, for the first time ecstatic that she’d killed Luigi, if it had brought her these precious gifts.

Graverobber’s eyebrows shot up, wrinkling his wide forehead. “Really? That’s…odd. I could’ve sworn it was you.” He seemed somewhat perturbed by this new discovery, though Shilo couldn’t fathom why.

“No, look!” She held up the back of the photograph for him to see.

“Oh…” He still looked mildly troubled, though she refused to let that dampen her spirits. His mood swings would not affect her today.

“I’m taking them to the table!” she announced, dashing down the stairs with a new energy that matched that of her former youth, revealing nothing of her injury

As he moved to follow her, Graverobber heard the clatter of overturning chairs and the muffled thump of a body hitting the ground.

“I’m okay!” she shouted after a few moments, her enthusiastic voice carrying up the stairs.

Graverobber just laughed and shook his head.

 

* * *

 

It was about two hours later when they had the entirety of the box of pictures spread across the spindly kitchen table. Shilo had taken the time to exclaim over every picture, even if she didn’t recognize any of the people in them, theorizing familial relationships to everyone and commenting on the “family nose” or some other such nonsense. Graverobber did not always succeed in biting his tongue.

“Oh, really, you’re saying you think _that_ _guy_ is your uncle?” he asked incredulously, pointing to a corpulent man with an uneven red beard on the photograph in her hand.

Shilo grinned. “Well, why not? It’s not like there’s anyone alive to tell me otherwise.”

“But, Shi, this guy looks nothing like you or your mother.”

Shilo ignored his very _valid_ point, and continued to arrange the stacks, her dark hair falling across her face in a shimmering black sheet. Then suddenly she froze, looking up, as if something had just occurred to her.

“Graverobber, do _you_ have any family?” Her eyes were bright and inquisitive, and she looked more like her old self than he’d seen her in weeks. Even so, he didn’t want to answer her. His past was in the past, he loathed talking about it, end of story.

Except Shilo had a tendency of looking at him in such a way, that his hollow sanity was pierced and he fell to her bidding. Her dark eyes hypnotized him into spilling out his most carefully guarded secrets. This case was no different. “Yes…” he said, his voice gravelly and begrudging.

Shilo seemed pleased by this. “Where are they? Do you speak to them?” She seemed to have forgotten the pictures for the moment and was now leaning towards him, chin resting on her fists, her eyes focused intently upon his rugged face.

“I…” he had halfway hoped she would drop the subject, foolish as that was, and was not prepared for the barrage of questions she peppered him with. He bit the inside of his cheek, wishing he had some Zydrate handy, and trying to figure out a way to extricate himself from the situation. He tried to keep his eyes focused on the wood grain of the table, but they strayed, of their own accord, back to the young woman seated across from him, and once again he was forced to respond. “They live on the other side of the city…a high rise apartment building…they think I’m dead,” he finally said, his voice barely above a whisper and heavy with emotions he was trying to mask.

“Oh…I’m so sorry.”

Graverobber laughed humorlessly. “At least they’re not all Repomen!” he commented sarcastically. Shilo flinched visibly at his statement, and he tried not to let that bother him. She’d driven him to this angry, cynical place, after all.

Shilo was silent for a long while, then, “Did you have any siblings?” she whispered, avoiding his eyes, but still unwaveringly focused on their conversation.

This, he didn’t mind responding to. “Yes, a sister. She’s a tattoo artist on Forty-Fifth Street. In fact…” he rolled up the sleeve of his worn jacket to reveal a hauntingly elegant script, colored to look like it had been carved into his skin. Shilo ran her hand over the strange words to confirm they were not, if fact, real.

“Solum iuvenibus moriuntur bonum,” she muttered, reading the Latin words imperfectly. “What does it mean?”

Graverobber smiled halfheartedly, pushing his sleeve back down to its normal place. “Only the good die young,” his voice was grim, a pang of regret within his cynicism.

Shilo frowned, eyes intent upon his face. “That...that’s not true.” Her denial was hollow, and Graverobber marveled again at how faithless she’d become. _She’s so different from the sick little girl I once knew…_

He met her eyes solemnly, asserting his knowledge about the evils of the world, though he knew she was already well aware of them. “You’re a testament to its truth, aren't you? This past year you changed your entire being for survival. Where is the pure girl who left? Now her hands are black with blood, and yet she is alive.” Graverobber surprised himself with the potency and poetic grace of his statements. He was rarely that articulate around her.

Eyes downcast once again, she whispered, “ _She_ is not alive, as you’ve pointed out. She died that day at the Opera House, in a pool of other’s blood. I am a gross parody, the survivor.” Her face twisted in some indescribable emotion, and Graverobber hoped she wouldn’t start crying again. He didn’t know if he could handle any more drama of that kind at that moment.

“No,” he realized, catching sight of the box of jumbled photographs perched on the table and recalling how he’d obtained them from one of her well wishers. “No, Shi, you’re the hero.”

And, even though killing Luigi had been a service to herself, he could not shake that picture of her from his mind, the silent heroine, the imprisoned princess who broke free and rid the world of evil. Graverobber was fascinated by her purity, and now that she had been tarnished by the brutality of the streets he’d found a new enigma within her: her heroism. But if she was a hero, then why would she want the submarket?

_I’m not good enough for her._


	9. Until Death Do Us Part

Chapter 9 – Until Death Do Us Part  

Graverobber grimaced at the stench of rotting flesh that permeated the air. The entire city smelled faintly of it, but in death’s domain it was overwhelmingly powerful. He held his nose and crept forward, watching the gyrating searchlights warily as he crept between the rows of crumbling headstones that marked the outskirts of the dismal graveyard. It was eerily quiet, save for the occasional scuff of his boot or crunch of fallen leaves. These faint sounds did not faze him as they once had during his first few raids; he was accustomed to the pounding in his head, heightening every sensation, making the snap of a twig sound like a gun shot. In fact, he relished the adrenaline.

Shilo was only a few steps behind him, clad in a stunning outfit of skintight black fabric and a matching obsidian trench coat ending just below her knees at the tops of her black combat boots. Graverobber, although he’d relished the sight of her body beneath the dark elastic fabric, had insisted on the coat and boots, over protectively concerned about the cold. She was still huffing somewhat about it, even as they crouched behind the moss covered grave markers, and Graverobber had to give her several withering looks each time she felt the need to exclaim about stumbling over a rock in what she deemed “clunky” shoes.

She forgot all about the shoes, however, when Graverobber produced an impressively large shovel from its hidden location beneath his trench coat.

“You’ve been hiding that under there this whole time?” she exclaimed, thinking it impossible that he’d been so nimble with such a burden hooked in his belt.

Graverobber cast her a look that clearly said, in a very scoffing, all suffering tone, “ _Amateurs!”_ He then proceeded to dig a precise, oddly neat hole in the ground beside them, pausing at brief intervals to allow the patrols to pass unawares. When he at last cast aside the grime covered instrument, there was a very shallow grave, about eight inches deep, revealing the plain wood frame of a commoner’s coffin. Graverobber, while he began to skillfully damage and pry at the lid of said coffin, explained in hushed tones why, although the poorer rarely had valuable jewelry or weaponry on them, they were better candidates for zydrate dealers because of the thinner coffins. Shilo heard not a word of his whispered lesson, too enraptured by the motion of his strong hands, as he disassembled the wooden box without even the advantage of his eyes. She was infinitely impressed.

“So,” he continued his lesson, “Once you get the lid off, it’s simple.” He removed the leather case with his various needles and vials, unfolding it upon the ground with utmost care. He selected a long, garish needle from the collection and approached the open coffin.

 

* * *

 

Shilo had refrained from letting her eyes stray to the body before, but now she was forced to look upon death again or miss out on the spectacle of his work. Seeing the body, as all the others she had come across in the past year, made her cringe ever so slightly; her stomach churned with disgust and the strange insistence that the figure before her was no more a person than a lamp post, merely an empty husk, void of its humanity. The corpse was female, a flabby sort of woman with sunken cheeks, sack-like jowls, and hair the color of muddy water. What remained of her clothes looked to be a red dress suit, and she was clutching a cluster of dead flowers in her left hand. Shilo soon found the whole picture morbidly hilarious and had to stifle an inappropriate chuckle.

Oddly enough, Graverobber approached the lifeless form with an uncanny amount of respect. When he inserted the needle into the lost woman’s skull, he held the back of her head with a tenderness Shilo had never witnessed in him before. In fact, the gentleness of his touch unsettled her somewhat. Her unease was furthered by the snap of him smacking the back of his tool, forcing it further into the corpse and causing Shilo to jerk in alarm. Graves did not spare her a glance, too engrossed in his work.

As Shilo fidgeted uncomfortably beside the small pile of discarded soil, Graverobber gingerly pulled back the plunger of his sizeable needle, drawing out the fantastic glowing blue drug his patrons craved. His fingers now were firm, precise, no longer lingering unnecessarily. He filled six vials in quick succession, never pausing, or changing expression. Shilo stopped fidgeting, once again caught up by the utter control he exuded when he worked. She found herself unusually attracted to him, as powerful as he looked presiding over the graveyard, the keeper of the corpses. Silently, Shilo acknowledged that these were strange things to find appealing in a man, but, then again, her life had taken so many strange turns it was impossible to predict where she might end up next.

So distracted by the muscles of Graverobbers arms (his sleeves rolled up to keep them out of his way) that rolled sinuously with each move he made, corded and tough, she didn’t notice that he was finishing up with the body. She was still staring dumbstruck, all her wonder and attraction spread plainly across her countenance, when he swung back around to fill his leather satchel with the glowing blue spoils. Shilo didn’t have the time or the presence of mind to adjust her expression to one of careful indifference before he saw her, and when their eyes locked, hers were still wild and desirous.

A slow smirk spread across the drug dealer’s face, reading her expression with the precise intuition he always used. Shilo, finally snapping out of her episode, attempted to stifle her feelings once again before the man before her noticed, but of course, it was far too late for that. Forgetting the vials and the exposed corpse, Graverobber swaggered towards her, a spring in his step she’d never witnessed before.

He stopped when they were mere inches apart. “What’s the matter, Wallace, cat got your tongue?”

His breath was hot on her face, billowing up in a fog against the air of the chilly night. He smelled strangely pleasant at this proximity, a bitter and sweet scent that Shilo had become familiar with over the past weeks, one she’d grown to count upon. She did her best to avoid breathing, for fear of further clouding her head; she also kept her eyes firmly set on the ground, blush coloring her pale cheeks.

A rough hand gripped her chin, pulling her face up until deep brown met shadowed hazel eyes. And then she knew she’d lost the battle against him, against herself. Whatever was going to happen between them would happen, and she was powerless to stop it. She let out the breath she’d been holding, and let herself lean into him, her lips reaching up to meet his.

“Grave robbers on the premises!” the intercom blared deafeningly, causing them to jump apart, their lust long forgotten. “I repeat, grave robbers on the premises!” Shilo covered her ears, dashing behind the nearest tombstone, cursing herself for becoming so distracted she didn’t think to watch out for the search lights. Her face burned with embarrassment at her stupidity and disappointment for the interruption. _My life is far too complicated,_ she thought, looking over her shoulder to see Graverobber dashing toward her hiding spot, satchel in hand, a dull tinkling noise coming from the glass knocking together as he ran.

The night walker barely paused at the marker she was crouched behind, instead holding out his hand while whispering, “Come on, come on, run!” Her momentary confusion delayed them, but she quickly regained her senses and they were bounding through the twisted trees and crumbling graves, hand in hand, coats flapping like the wings of some strange bird.

Shilo spared a few glances behind her as they ran, noting each time the GENcops, their black uniforms and strange helmets bobbing and weaving between the rows, close on their criminal heels. Adrenaline pulsed through her, each time she saw them gaining, and she poured on the speed, wary of what might happen if they were intercepted. Thankfully, the landscape of the graveyard had protected them from the bullets and sleep darts that occasionally sliced the night, the moderate skill of the men and women behind them making it difficult for them to get a good shot while running full speed with the myriad of obstacles. And, though Shilo admitted to herself that she would most likely not be harmed if they realized or believed who she was, she didn’t want the esteem of the city to be soiled by this incident. More so, she wasn’t certain what would become of Graverobber were they overtaken.

So they ran, Graves a few paces ahead of her, his firm hand guiding her through a convoluted course that she would never have been able to navigate on her own, and certainly confused and slowed their pursuers. “You’re…” Shilo huffed between breaths. “Really…good…at this.”

Graverobber chuckled, not nearly as winded as the girl beside him. “Just wait until we get home, then I’ll show you what I’m _really_ good at,” he teased, managing to leer at her, even while leaping the gnarled roots of a hawthorn tree.

Shilo laughed uneasily, her face flooding with color again. That was one development she didn’t think she could handle just yet, for all her pride and banter. She hadn’t had sex with anyone since she lost her virginity, and that had been one of the more horrifying experiences of her life, which was a lot considering what she’d gone through since she met Graverobber. She was scared of doing it again, scared of the pain, scared of giving herself up to someone so completely.

That was what she feared most about their blossoming relationship; everything led to sex, and she was convinced she could never partake of the act again.

_What if he really does plan to show me tonight?_ The thought alarmed her, and she shot a terrified glance at Graverobber who, thankfully, had turned his head to check the progress of the GENcops pursuing them. But no, he’d only been joking. They’d only even kissed once, and things between them were far too unsettled for him to expect that now. _But he and Amber Sweet used to…_ Shilo recalled the way they’d circled each other like animals beside the Zydrate Support Network. She’d been certain even then, in all her innocence, that they were hooking up. Graves had confirmed her suspicions later; so what if he thought sex was like that with all women? What if it really meant so little to him? What if he thought it meant so little to her?

She shook her head, attempting to dispel the impossible “what-ifs” that were plaguing her. It was not the time for her to delve into this; they were running for their lives after all. _Later, I’ll hash it out later,_ she promised herself, pushing those concerns to the back of her mind.

Instead, she had to focus on the pounding of her feet against the earth, the beating of the blood in her ears, and the whoosh of her quickening breaths. All of this needed her attention, while half of her brain was solely engrossed in the warmth and strength of the hand wrapped around hers. _Infatuation is entirely unhealthy,_ she concluded, responding to the tug on her arm and darting around an almost invisible tombstone.

“We’re almost out,” Graverobber promised, even his rhythmic breathing becoming labored and heavy. Shilo could only nod her understanding, too winded to form words, certain that if she spared the oxygen she would collapse.

Then, suddenly a break in the rows of markers opened up, and the jagged outline of a wrought iron fence rose before them, giving Shilo hope. Her relief was soiled, however, when she made out the ridged spikes that made up the top of the twenty foot high structure. “Spikes!” she breathed urgently to her partner, motioning frantically.

Though he looked grave, his determination was unhindered by this issue. “Don’t worry about it,” he assured her, as clearly as he could. He tried to hide it from her, but she could see the concern swirling in his eyes. They were in trouble.

Still running full speed, they practically slammed into the fence, backpedaling only enough to prevent injury, then leaping forward with the rest of their momentum to the first crossbar. This fence was not as easy a climb as a chain link or uneven stone wall would have provided, but it was still doable thanks to the wrought iron cross sections ribbing the fatter struts that made up the bulk of the structure. Shilo was morbidly amused by the irony; the only reason they could climb this fence was because it was so tall it required extra supports, if it had been ten feet the GENcops would’ve caught them. But luck provided, and they managed to haul their sweating, gasping forms up to the top support bar. Unfortunately, that was as far as luck could carry them.

The spikes Shilo had noticed before proved to be just as sharp as she’d feared, and the highest cross bar brought her only to chest level with them. There was no chance of her swinging her leg safely over them. _It’s over,_ she lamented, finally giving up. They were doomed for sure. Soon, the GENcops would come racing through the line of trees and tombstones on the edge of the graveyard, see them at the top of the fence, and shoot them dead. The game was over, and they had lost.

She reached for Graverobber, having let go of his hand while shimmying up the fence, but found him not where he should have been. Confused, she looked frantically around, worried he’d fallen off. She found him hanging from the other, the outer, side of the fence looking expectantly up at her. “What the fuck are you doing?! Hurry the hell up!” he hissed, his face contorted in worry and rage.

“How’d you get down there?” Shilo couldn’t understand it. What trick was she missing?

“I swung my fucking leg over! Have you completely lost it?”

Shilo’s eyes widened in sudden comprehension. He was taller, _much taller,_ than her. He could make it over the spikes without injury because of his blessedly long legs. He could escape.

“Leave me!” she immediately cried. If he went now, he’d be okay, and she could climb back down to meet the GENcops, and hopefully convince them of who she was before they killed her. Either way, she’d buy him time.

“What the hell are you talking about? Get over here!” he growled, losing patience with her.

“I can’t,” she explained, “I’m too short. You should go without me. There’s always a chance they’ll recognize me and not kill me.”

This all seemed like a very logical plan to Shilo, but Graverobber was utterly floored by her words. “A chance?!” His face had turned a new shade of white in his shock and anger, and his voice was higher than she’d ever heard it before. “Shilo, I am not leaving you here on the off chance they _might not_ kill you!”

“Well then we’ll both die! Is that what you want?” She was exasperated now. Why didn’t he understand that this was the best way, the only way?

A moment of confusion marred his face, then it cleared, an expression of calm understanding taking its place as he climbed back up to the top strut to face her.

“Yes. Yes, that’s what I want,” he told her seriously, not a hint of sarcasm in his deep voice. Every bit of his face, as he stared solemnly into her eyes, was sincere; he meant what he said. He’d rather they both die than leave her there.

Shocked silence enveloped them both, as Shilo’s mouth hung open, as she tried to comprehend what had just passed between them. Tears pooled in her eyes as she came to the conclusion that he’d chosen her, just then, in the deciding moment that she hadn’t even recognized, he’d chosen her. Despite sanity, reality, fear, self preservation and everything else conflicting with his choice, he would stay.

The tears spilled over as she wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning as far towards him as the spikes would allow, emotion overcoming all of her rational thoughts. Graverobber accommodated her, stooping over the fence top so she could reach his face, letting his fingers entangle in her long, dark hair. She brushed her lips against his, softly at first, but soon kissing him with the same manic passion that had colored their first encounter of this kind. Their kisses were painfully euphoric, salty as they mixed with Shilo’s steady tears, and regretfully sweet as they both knew they’d be dead very soon.

Still, they determinedly refused to separate, even with the promise of certain death heavy above their heads.


	10. A Shovel For My Soul

Chapter 10 – A Shovel For My Soul

Neither of them seemed willing to acknowledge aloud their coming doom, instead enveloping each other completely from the outside world, focusing intently on their desire. Shilo even went so far as to slip her hand inside Graverobber’s coat, searching for his shirt hem, longing to know what the muscles beneath felt like. He made a small noise of surprise in the back of his throat as her hand slipped through the bars into the gap of his jacket, but otherwise did not acknowledge it, instead focusing on running his fingers up and down her spine, making her shiver.

Shilo was surprised at how hard it was for her to find the bottom of his shirt; the depths of his duster were far deeper than she’d fathomed, and as she groped beneath them her hand slammed into the handle of a shovel she hadn’t dreamed could be there, knocking her knuckles painfully against it, and causing it to bounce against Graverobber’s leg. She muttered a curse against his lips, yanking her hand back, and pulling her face from his just enough to examine the damage.

_Well, nothing looks broken,_ she concluded, replacing the hand in the hair at Graves’ neck and turning her lips toward him again. However, he was no longer paying attention…

 

* * *

 

_The shovel!_ He realized suddenly, amazed by his ignorance. _Why didn’t I think of it before?_

Shilo was giving him a strange look, as if she did not quite comprehend what was going on, but Graverobber scarcely cared. He had a solution, an escape! He may not have been the hero, but he could certainly be the escape route. That much he was capable of. A joyous smile split his face as he realized there was hope again, a slim chance, but a chance nonetheless. If the GENcops had gone this long without finding them, perhaps they’d lost them in the trees, or the idiots had forgotten to look up when they came to the fence. Either way, Graverobber thought they might just have time enough to make it out alive. And if they did, he wouldn’t waste it.

With lightning precision, he removed the encrusted shovel from his belt, having snatched it from the dirt pile just before they’d run. Most of the filth that had been on the tool was either smeared on the side of his pants or had been knocked off in their flight, but what was left was a crusty, dried brown smelling of decay, and Graverobber winced as the smell wafted into his face. But he did not pause, far too decided on saving Shilo to be off put by something like a rotten odor.

Shilo’s eyes were bright and curious as she watched him, an expression he’d never seen before emanating from their depths. There was an implacable sadness in her countenance, though her face shone with the euphoria from their kiss. Graverobber tried not to become distracted by the way she was watching him so intently, so _gently._ He forced himself to focus on the task at hand.

The first thing he did was make thick grooves in the oblong wooden shovel handle with his switchblade, hacking into the worn wood with an intense ferocity that quickly completed the task. He then fitted the grooves onto the points of the nearest spikes, wedging them as far down as they would go, pushing the circular handle in at an angle so that the tip of the shovel was braced against the wrought iron crossbar.

He had created a ramp, a bridge, for Shilo to cross.

 

* * *

 

They broke through the line of trees just in time to see the slight girl standing on the top of the fence, clearly stranded, her partner hanging from the outer side, probably enough of a giant to make it over. They were clearly saying something to each other; Asher wondered if she was trying to convince him to save her. That seemed the most likely thing to be arguing about in that situation, although, he was not convinced the man _could_ lift her over the fence top, even if he wanted to.

Asher raised his gun in unison with the rest of his squadron, having gotten the signal from Erin, their captain, to ready fire. But just as they were taking aim to blast the pair out of the sky, the long haired man bellowed, “Shilo, I am not leaving you here on the off chance they _might not_ kill you!”

This bit of information gave them pause. “Shilo _Wallace_?” everyone began to mutter, concernedly, lowering their weapons in confusion. They’d been looking for a Shilo Wallace; she’d killed their former boss, Luigi Largo. And, contrary to what one might think, they wanted to thank and congratulate the girl, having known for many years that Luigi was a dictatorial madman who happily murdered anyone who displeased him. The GENcops, though they worked for him, were always of the opinion that he needed to die. Now that it had been accomplished, and with a such a stylish, assassin-like air to it, the only thing left to do was find and recruit the woman who had managed it.

There was no way any of them were pulling their triggers unless they knew for certain the girl on the fence was _not_ their heroin. They crowded around their superior, Erin, for further orders.

Erin, a middle aged blonde who always wore her hair in a long braid that hung out of the back of her helmet like a golden rope, looked utterly torn. She could not seem to form a sentence, much less an opinion, on the situation. Asher came forward, flipping back his visor so she could easily recognize him, to offer assistance.

“I think it’s her, ma’am. We’ve had intelligence reports that she’s linked to a local grave robber. In fact, according to some sources, he was instrumental in the tragedy of The Genetic Opera. With that kind of evidence combined with her name and appearance, we can’t shoot without…”

But before he could finish, Asher was interrupted by one of his fellow cops who’d exclaimed, “Look!” and was pointing frantically to the fence looming above them.

The man with the long multi-colored hair and deep voice had climbed back to the top of the fence, and the pair was now kissing passionately, as entwined as two people could be across a row of jagged spikes. The GENcops watched with interest as he ran his hands through her dark hair, grumbling things like, “unwise,” and “unnatural” and “hot.” Asher chuckled at the spectacle, surprised that so much ecstasy could be achieved atop a wrought iron fence.

“Maybe we should just leave them alone,” he commented amusedly, all tense exhilaration from the chase melted away by the idea that it was Shilo Wallace, and replaced by good natured happiness that she was in love.

His superior, however, couldn’t just let two grave robbers go. She didn’t have concrete evidence that it really was the girl wonder, and couldn’t give a report to their GeneCo correspondent without it, even if the company was being run by a panel of over-privileged investors now. But, she also didn’t want to startle the pair into doing something stupid by using the intercom or approaching the fence, guns raised, to prevent them from running. Because, if it was Shilo Wallace, they’d just spent well over ten minutes racing through the graveyard in pursuit of legend, which was acceptable. But if it wasn’t her, and they let the two get away, that was embarrassingly wasteful as well as imbecilic. Asher understood these things and did his best to advise Erin on what to do next, all the while watching intently as the long haired man did something odd with a shovel.

By the time they realized what he was actually doing, it was too late to stop them.

 

* * *

 

Shilo grinned as understanding washed over her. He was a genius! The shovel was the perfect solution! The triangular head made for standing upon when breaking hard ground substituted as a brilliant step, which she thought could boost her just enough to make it across the serrated fence top.

_Genius! I didn’t even know he still_ had _the shovel!_ She thought, amazed at his resourcefulness.

With one hand on the shovel handle Graverobber had shoved across the gap between two spikes and the other arm being gripped firmly by the aforementioned man, Shilo eased onto the head, unsure of its ability to hold her full weight. A dull creaking noise came from the maimed wooden handle, where most of her weight was pulling, but otherwise, the device held, and Shilo and Graves shared a triumphant look, before she proceeded to clamber further onto the tool. Turning so that she had one foot atop the fence, Shilo managed to execute a risky spin, in which she put all her weight and balance on the top of the shovel handle and swung her leg to the other side. She accomplished it easily enough, but would have most definitely fallen if not for the corded arms that caught her, jarring her slight frame to a standstill.

Pressed against Graverobber as she was, his gloating smile was mere inches away from her own effervescent one, and it took the bulk of her willpower to move away from him so they could climb back down the fence. True to his nature, however, Graverobber refused to let her pull apart, placing a quick, rough kiss on her lips before releasing his hold, costing them more precious time as well as making Shilo’s head spin dizzyingly. Shilo resolved to explain to him later how unwise that was, too engrossed in dismounting the fence to give him the withering look he deserved. For all either of them knew, the GENcops could burst through the far trees at any second, and what would they be caught doing, not the first but the _second_ time that night while being chased by the authorities? Kissing! They’d be found, atop a wrought iron fence, passionately sticking their tongues down each other’s throats.

Shilo was utterly irritated that she’d enjoyed it so much.

“Ready for an early morning stroll?” Graverobber teased as they reached the ground, encasing her hand once again within his.

“What, no more marathon races?” They slipped behind a tangle of bushes, peeking through the branches to see if their pursuers appeared.

“Well, they’re no fun if I always win. Maybe you should run while I eat some donuts, start evening out the competition, you know.” His eyes sparkled with amusement; Shilo punched him in the arm, earning her a whispered exclamation of pain, though she was pretty certain he was feigning injury for her benefit. “Maybe I’ll just get a SurGen to shorten my legs down to Shilo height, then you’d at least have a fifty-fifty shot at victory,” he jested, his smile wicked and wonderful.

Shilo was smiling as well. “Oh? And why are my odds still so poor?”

Graverobber faked a pitying frown. “You’re a woman. You’re odds are _always_ inferior to those of the master sex!” His exaggerated movements only added to the absurdity of the statement, and Shilo had to bite back the guffaw laughter that threatened to burst forth and betray their position.

“An extra appendage that can easily cause incapacitation with the slightest bump does not a superior sex make.” She was giggling somewhat, unable to contain her mirth at their escape, at the utter vibrancy that being around him had become. And with the fear of their relationship absent for the night, placed instead within her terror of being caught, she was glowing, so much so that she was faintly concerned about the GENcops taking notice of the light between the bushes. She quickly dismissed that obstacle though, not for any sensible, logical realization she’d had about it, but merely because Graverobber was smiling at her again. And, really, how could she be concerned about anything else when she was almost certain her heart had just stopped?

But the smile vanished as quickly as it had come, the fleeting atmosphere going with it. A strained silence recaptured the pair as they listened intently for the absent authorities.

Finally, Graverobber cleared his throat and said, “I don’t think anyone’s coming. Let’s go.”

And so they went, him still leading her with the firm grip of his fingers, and she lamenting that their manner was not nearly as close or as jubilant as it had been mere minutes before. But he was still holding her hand, and she still did not have the sense to be wary of that occurrence, so she smiled, infinitely aware of how recently those upturned lips had been pressed against Graverobber’s hungry mouth. The memory only made her smile wider.


	11. The Agony of the Aftermath

Chapter 11 – The Agony of the Aftermath

His palms were slick, with sweat, with blood? He could not tell the difference anymore. The metallic tang filled his nose, like salt and copper, like Shilo, bright and burning. The corridor glowed an eerie blue, on the edges a dull purple, as the shattered vials of zydrate mixed with her blood in the growing pool spanning the floor.

Graverobber was terrified, more afraid than he’d ever been in his life, as he raised his hands to his face. His eyes clenched shut unconsciously and he struggled to find the will to force them open. He did not want to see the evidence. He did not want to bear witness to his own betrayal. He did not want to be a monster.

Hazel irises appeared in a rush, a surge of emotions spurring their springs. Rough, callused hands dangled before his face, lined with the strain of the years on the street, and leathery with repeated use. Veins bulged from the pale skin, green in the dim morning light, and fingernails marred by the dirt of a thousand coffins clutched perilously to the long, boney prongs that were his digits. Not a spot marred their stark white surface, though they were, like the rest of his shuddering form, coated in sweat. There was no blood on his hands.

_Nightmare,_ Graverobber thought, sitting up stiffly, not sure whether to be more disturbed or relieved.

It had been so realistic: the blood, the zydrate, Shilo…dead. But it wasn’t real, only a dream.

_Not like you don’t know what caused it,_ he thought to himself, recalling the antics of the previous night. He’d been so _happy_ to be a martyr for her, so _happy_ to stay on the fence and sacrifice himself. But the effervescence that choice had caused lasted only as long as she was pressed against his skin; the choice itself was made in a moment of manic devotion, spurred by feelings that passed just as quickly as the words were spoken.

Should he be ashamed that he’d wanted to take it back? Or relieved that his sense of self preservation was not so distorted as his actions suggested? Or perhaps he should be proud that, in the end, he _had_ been her hero, her escape route?

Mostly, he was just afraid, of himself, of her, of his actions. He wanted nothing more than to erase that night from both of their memories…No, that was a lie, he wanted _so much more_ than that.

He wanted her to look at him the way she’d looked at him atop the fence every day for the rest of his life. He wanted her lips, hands, breath to belong to him the way they’d belonged to him the previous night. He wanted her laughter to be the last sound he heard before he died, her touch the last thing he felt. He wanted her to come with him to every gravesite, merely so he could feel her eyes consuming him in their attraction, their impression, as he worked. He wanted her to whisper his name before she fell asleep, and wake to her lips on his cheek. He wanted to confess to her every crime, all of the misguided notions and fearful emotions he’d held. He wanted all of the noble fantasies he had attempted to become for her to be true. Most importantly, he _wanted_ to want to save her, without remorse, or guilt, or abuse. He wanted to be good enough for her.

But his dreams had only confirmed the truth. They called him a monster, an addict, showed him her death and made him suffer it. He’d unwisely let himself become attached and now he’d pay the price when she realized… When she saw that the man on the fence wasn’t real, when she saw that the _real_ Graverobber would have left her as she’d urged and saved himself, she would leave. Then he’d have to remember why he liked being alone, why love wasn’t for him.

_But if you hadn’t stayed with her, she’d be dead,_ he argued with himself, trying to justify his actions. _If you’d left like she’d asked, you would never have remembered the shovel._

Another side argued, _But if it wasn’t for the damn shovel, we’d_ both _be dead! I said... I told her I’d die for her, and chance is the only reason I wasn’t forced to fulfill that promise! How could…Why did…_

This line of thinking entertained Graverobber for about an hour of self imposed suffering. He led himself through every possible scenario, mourned every ill spoken word, and relived again and again the painful walk home, when she was looking for the bright eyed man who’d rescued her and he was wishing that lie had never appeared.

Finally, hunger forced him from his pit of despair, and he reluctantly descended the stairs in search of food.

 

* * *

 

Shilo heard the heavy, slow footsteps, and could well enough guess their meaning from the couch where she lay curled, covering the blood stains she’d left there weeks before. It was difficult not to allow the significance of the ragged red marks to affect her thoughts, although she’d rather be swimming in regret _there_ than in the scene of their first kiss and her childhood prison. She’d left enough fears and regrets in that tomb; this pain needed more air than the bug carcasses and dusty monitors of her bedroom could give.

But the spot she’d chosen was not so much better. She had a clear view of the fireplace, an eternal sign of her father’s alternate life, and the aforementioned bloodstains to crowd her head. Not to mention the accessibility it left for his keen eyes to survey. Yet she did not relocate, if only for the strange desire to have herself caught in remorse, so that she would see him, so that he would speak to her.

Shilo didn’t regret that she’d urged him to leave her, to save himself; that was the only thing she could imagine herself rightly doing. What she wished she could take back, was the complete and total surrender she’d fallen to when he chose to stay. It was one of those “forever moments” they love to capitalize on in cheesy romance movies, where the real world and the rest of their lives don’t matter. The romanticism of the idea overthrows every logical, sensible urge, and they live “happily ever after” for the five seconds before the credits roll. And if Shilo and Graverobber had died on that fence top, that would have been the perfect way to end their story. They’d been happy, fulfilled, together; anyone would be pleased to have their saga end in such tragic bliss.

But instead of dying, testaments to their love, they’d survived. And now they had to face the aftermath of what they’d done in a reckless second. It was not an easy place for two people, so immature in their emotional attachments, to be.

So Shilo distressed, just as fervently as Graverobber, over her looks, her actions, her feelings, from that night. She’d been so careful for so long to keep a thin barrier between them, to keep him as close as she’d begun to _need_ him to be, but far enough that if she lost him, she’d survive. Her relationship with her father was unhealthy, anyone could tell her that, and she wasn’t going to let someone get that close again…at least, not intentionally.

Because, if she had to be honest with herself, it would be clear that the time for determining not to let him become closer had passed. It was too late to keep him at arms length, when he was already so ingrained into her heart, her being. She could deny and battle and regret it, but she’d already succumbed to those hazel eyes and melted against those dark, furious lips. She had let down every protection, brought him as close as she could in that moment, and most infuriatingly, she had no idea how to undo those changes. How could she put back up her walls, when all she could think about was being enveloped again by those strong, corded arms? How could she push him away, when her heart hammered an exhilarating staccato every time he walked into the room? She _knew_ on a rational level that she did not _need_ him the way every fiber of her body claimed, that she had survived before him, that she could survive after him, but love wasn’t rational.

And, if she were honest with herself, which of course she wasn’t, she could admit to it being love, and perhaps forgive herself for some of the emotion fuelled choices she’d made the past night. But Shilo was not in the habit of letting her heart rule her, not since the day she became a scared and angry fugitive, so she merely abused herself with the painful certainty she’d created. Now that she’d let him in, when he left her (like everyone did) she’d have to find a way to piece herself back together a second time. And she knew from experience just how painful and unbearable it would be.

So preemptive agony was the primary emotion on her bleak face when Graverobber passed her on his way to the kitchen, his footsteps and face revealing just how torn up he was, as well. And remorse and regret met in a hollow look between their two pairs of eyes, joining them once again in a strange communion of shared suffering.


	12. With Guile and Grief

Chapter 12 – With Guile and Grief

They hadn't spoken more than a few brief words to each other in almost a week. Even when Shilo heard him screaming in the middle of the night and came racing to his room, switchblade ready, they had barely spoken. She'd flung his door open in frantic haste, terrified that he was being attacked, tortured, killed, without thinking about the stoic silence they'd been passing in, without arranging her face so that it did not reveal the truth of her worry.

She had found him sprawled (primarily unclothed) across the floor beside his bed, sweat slicking his multicolored hair down to the broad and pasty forehead below it, dark red liquid running out of his brutally clenched fists, and horrorstruck sorrow clouding his shadowed, hazel eyes. From where Shilo stood, frozen in the doorway, she thought that perhaps the droplets of sweat that hung in beads on his sharp cheekbones and slid off of the planes of his jaw, might have even originated in those mourning eyes, as tears. But that notion lasted only the short seconds it took Graverobber to compose himself, and steel those sad eyes back into indifference.

He stood, his expression once again a stone mask of apathy, using the fabric of his discarded shirt to mop his face and staunch the bleeding of his hands. Uncovered, the pale flesh of his abdomen was just as Shilo had imagined it; ribbed with ropes of taught muscle, not bulging or garish, but corded and defined, making his already imposing figure look tougher and more immovable. Dark hair sprinkled his chest, fading into his strong shoulders and marking a slim track down into the depths of his black boxers. Shilo was uncomfortably fascinated by that arrow; she wanted to trace it with her fingers, to see where it led.

But one glance at his mutilated palms reminded her of why she was here.

"Here, let me," she started towards him, hands outstretched to receive the damage. But Graverobber was nowhere near enough to clarity at that point to let her tend his wounds. Instead he retreated from her reaching fingers, face rebelling against the careful control he was attempting to exert over it, revealing the breathless agony and crushing fear he was experiencing.

The worry that was etched into her confused face only heightened at this slip of his, misunderstanding thickening the fog between them. "Graves?" she whispered uncertainly. How could she know that his pain, though physical enough to burn in his stomach and ache in his chest, did not originate in any corporeal wound? How was she to guess that he suffered every soft line of her expression, every panicked catch in her voice? Why would she expect  _herself_ to be the cause of his agony, when  _she_ was mourning  _his_ silence?

She wouldn't. She couldn't. But Graverobber knew only his own fear and grief; he did not ask himself these questions, nor did he care to know the answers. Because, in that moment, his only thought was to get away from her.

"I'm fine," he snapped, with a venom and disgust wholly undeserved, stalking past her to the bathroom in the hall, where she heard the faucet begin to run, drowning out the muffled hisses that were escaping his lips.

Shadowing her quickly crumpling face, Shilo crept back to her own room where her tears could be shed un-witnessed, where she could abuse herself for the weakness of those tears alone. He wouldn't follow her, no matter how ardently she wished to hear his carefree lope approaching her door; she knew it was a false hope to hold. Despite the sting of his harsh tone, of his completely altered treatment of her, it was this certainty that he was not going to come after her that really left its mark. And she mourned the loss of the man who had belonged to her only for a moment, and who she had tortured herself for wanting the entire time he'd been hers.

That's the ultimate irony of life, that we only know the faults of our actions when the losses have stacked up and rendered them impossible to ignore. Shilo was no exception to this crime of human nature, though perhaps she should have known its plight better than most. But Shilo was little more than a child (despite her repeated denouncement of Graverobber's condescending nickname) and though we like to think of her as a worldly adult, with all the passions and fears resting heavily on her eighteen year shoulders, even the most experienced of adults can fall victim to the self destruction of the big yellow taxi and the paving of paradise.

Yet the situation was not as dire as Shilo's frayed nerves and anxious fears willed her to think it was. She saw a man who had rejected her, who might be gone in the morning, who she would certainly never be able to touch again, and these pictures could not be overcome by the coolness of logic. Emotion overwhelmed every other sensation, wracking the young woman's frail form with grief and regret, and blinding her to the reality of their relationship.

"He's leaving," she gasped between sobs, muffling her desperate keens in a battered throw pillow. She found no solace in the fact that she had known this would happen, and feared it considerably. "I tried…to…push him…away…and now…now," The mutterings and curses that followed this were not coherent or understandable enough to document, though her overwhelming display of remorse and pain carried on for hours. Every time she would begin to calm herself, hiccupping back to clarity, another harsh thought would rip through her and start the process all over again, soaking her shirt sleeve through, and leaving black smears across her pillow from the remnants of her mascara. And though she began crying for Graverobber, her thoughts soon turned to her parents, lingering over the details of her beloved father's death and the lie that his life had been, and then to herself, mourning the changes fate had forced upon her. She had lost so much of what made her  _Shilo_ over the past year that she didn't feel as if she knew her own face anymore, as callous and broken as it was. She was a stranger to her own brash voice, to the desire that pumped through her blood and urged her knees apart whenever Graverobber's eyes grazed her. Shilo didn't know anything of bravery, anything of passion or love! But the woman she had become did, and somehow that, too, was a travesty.

It was not until the early morning hours, when her wet sobs turned to chalky gasps, that she finally stilled, having cried herself dry. And after all the exertion put into grieving, she felt no better. The pain had not been carried away in the tears, as she so often hoped it would be. Her regret was still her own, her fears and memories still present. The weight was not so crushing as it had been, which was a relief to her, but that slight reprieve helped her very little when she heard the footsteps dragging slowly down the hallway.

He was coming.

* * *

Graverobber knew he was going to pay for his actions, but he never could have fathomed just how deeply agonizing it would be to listen to her cry, attempting to muffle her muttered words and keens so he wouldn't hear his name hitching in her sobs. The way she had looked at him, with worry, with empathy, with arousal, with pain, would have been enough to haunt him unbearably for days. Her panicked gaze when he'd first awoken, bloodied on the floor (not an uncommon occurrence as of late), would have been enough to do him in by itself, but then she  _had_ to notice his lack of a shirt, and spend an ample amount of time appraising that fact, her desire palpable in the air.

And, of course, he couldn't let her touch him, after waking from another nightmare, in which he shoved one of her father's blades into her spine and dragged her to GeneCo, where they planned to dissect her, for a ransom. He could barely even breathe, he was so afraid of her turning into an abused and bloody corpse again, afraid of finding himself shoving needles through her skull, afraid of standing by while Luigi Largo raped and murdered her, while Pavi ripped off her flawless face for his sick costume. He didn't deserve the thrill of her touch, the affection in her eyes, the softness of her voice. More importantly, he had to get away from her before it all turned to horror again.

But his escape was just as damaging as any of her looks, more damning than any of his dreams. Shilo's eyes had betrayed her as they always did, showing just how far his few words had cut, their wounded affection slicing him to the core of his being, making him long to take it back, even as he stalked past her to relief. Yet, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, rinsing the blood from his mutilated hands, he knew there was no relief to be found tonight. Her sobs already echoed in his ears, just as her pain was imprinted on the back of his eyelids.

She was suffering, so he was as well.

Graverobber turned off the rushing faucet, sinking to the tiled floor, unwilling to slither back to his own bed, where her tears might go unnoticed by him. He had been their cause, and he would withstand their consequences. The thin wall that separated her room from that of the bathroom did little to deafen him to her pain, bringing every syllable of her agony to his waiting ears. Every gasp of his name, every crazed murmur, every breathless curse; Shilo was possessed by her grief, one with it, and through the wall, Graverobber got a complete picture of her tortured soul, and with it, the depth of her feelings for him.

He wanted to feel joy. He was finally vindicated, finally assured that her feelings were just as violent and undeniable as his own…but joy was not his primary emotion. The overwhelming feeling that gave him pause, kept him from rushing to her side, to ease both of their misery, was the same one that always tore them apart. He wasn't good enough for her. And, whether she knew it or not, he didn't deserve the beauty and perfection she offered. She was brave and smart and strong and virtuous and caring; he was an emotionally challenged coward, a drug addict, with enough sense to keep himself alive but little more, a quick temper, an abused conscience, and a past filled with dumpsters and whores. If she loved him, it was only because she knew nothing else of the world, only because he was her only option in this concrete jungle of headstones and blood. If she had known any  _real_ men, she wouldn't look twice at him.

But he wanted so badly to take her anyway. He wanted to overlook the truth of her affection and bask in its glow, to become one with her, so that they could never be parted, and allow her perfection to reshape him into someone deserving of her love. He wanted to know every part of her intimately, to have run his fingers through every strand of hair and kissed every inch of skin. He wanted a life. He wanted  _forever._

Yet he couldn't ask for these things or strive to bring them about, because, stunted as his conscience was, he knew the selfishness that would be his motive for such acts, and for some reason he could not find the will to carry them out for his sake alone, when they doomed Shilo to a life with an unworthy partner. The reasonable parts of him denied this assertion; they told him to stride into that room immediately and make her his, fulfill both their lives and end this strange dance. But something, and we must assume that this, as unfamiliar as Graverobber must be with it, was love, stopped him from listening to it. The voice that had tormented him for playing the devoted lover on the fence top would now tell him to pledge himself to her? Now that it was in his own interest, now that he couldn't live without her, it was acceptable to be bound to another? No, he knew deception well enough to recognize it in his own mind.

But what could he do, knowing what he now knew,  _besides_ confess to her every secret and longing and devotion? If she wanted him, as much as she appeared to, was he strong enough to walk away from that? Was it even fair to make the choice for her? If he laid every fault at her feet, and she still claimed love, could he force her to leave him? Was it even his right to do so, when he felt the same way that she did? Ultimately, the decision came down to how much Graverobber could bear in a night, and, as the thought of spending the ensuing day without a glimpse of her face to confirm to him that he had not done irreparable damage, was just enough that, when added to every other piece of misery placed upon him, he had to go to her.

A brief, hesitating knock and a breathless reply was all the preparation either of them had for the scene that followed.


	13. A New Beginning

Chapter 13 – A New Beginning

“Shi?” Graverobber whispered into the darkness, attempting to keep the agitation and eagerness coursing through him from coloring his voice.

Her bedroom was pitch black, a stark contrast from the glaring brightness of the bathroom he had just vacated, and though he could hear a muffled sniffling coming from the back of the room, he could not _see_ her. And _that_ was what he really needed, her face, like a drug, his newest addiction. Uncertain if he was allowed to flick the nearby light switch, Graverobber fidgeted through the long moments it took for his sight to adjust, feeling every second like an eternity sparking against his clammy skin. _Finally_ , he could make out her huddled form, wedged into the far corner of the room, half hidden by the edge of a large wardrobe. Her back was to him, her face slumped into her knees…and, though relief flooded his veins, apprehension forced him to halt his step once again.

What was he supposed to say? How should he approach her? Was he allowed to touch her, dry the tears he knew were slipping down her cheeks? Did she even want him there, now, after all the pain he’d caused her that night? Maybe it would have been better just to let her be… After all, his presence there was because _he_ couldn’t stand to be away from _her_ any longer, not because he had any allusions that _she_ actually needed _him._

_Shilo would be fine without me,_ he repeated to himself, renewed shame flushing his face. _Maybe even_ better _without me._

 

* * *

 

He’d hovered in the doorway too long for Shilo to continue in silence, as much as she wanted to force him to approach unbidden. She longed for his presence just as ardently as he did hers. “Graverobber?” her throaty voice called out, pretending not to know if he was still there, though that was a sure lie. She could hear his breathing, as heavy and careless as his footsteps, easily across her small room; she could hear the indecision hidden within it.

 

* * *

 

_Of course_ she would ask for him, just when he was on the precipice of leaving, of saving them both from themselves. _Of course_ her innocence, her tears, her overwhelming longing, would be present in every syllable of his name as she spoke it. He wanted so badly to do the right thing, for her, to let her go, let her be someone special, instead of another night walker, another piece of street scum. Because that was the inevitability cast over their lives together; she may make him a better person, but he would most certainly drag her down into the dirt in the process.

But she _wanted_ him, and, in that instant, he was helpless to refuse her.

Seconds separated them, and then he was by her side, tentatively reaching a hand out to brush her shoulder. Before Graverobber could touch her, however, she turned towards him, revealing her tearstained face in all its glory.

It hit him like a knife.

The dark, twinkling eyes, that he’d too often lost himself within, were swollen and bloodshot, surrounded by smears of wayward makeup, black streaks across porcelain skin. Her face was flushed and chapped, from repeated swipes of her soaked shirt sleeve, and her hair was tangled and damp, sticking to her face and neck like clinging vines. Her lips trembled as he looked at her, apparently ashamed of her appearance.

“I’m a mess,” she breathed in apology, attempting to cover up the unseen flaws with her hands.

Graverobber grabbed her stray fingers instinctively, stopping them in their tracks, unable to take his eyes off of her. “You’re beautiful,” he replied, awe evident in his voice, in his eyes, in the air between them. He was amazed by how the tears had changed her, amazed by his inability to see any fault in that, in what should have been ruddy and unwanted. Every flaw was an attribute to him; she was no longer a pale goddess, but a mourning woman, a _person_ again, and somehow that made her even more spectacular.

He remembered the last time he’d seen her cry; it hadn’t been like that then. He’d just felt awkward and uncomfortable, but now… Everything was different.

_I wonder…if this…is what love is,_ he thought, at first resisting the word as impossible, but finally letting it through. It was the only word left to describe the indescribable. How could anything less capture the manic, unfathomable, _something_ that he felt for Shilo? It had to be… _love._

And he loved her even more for not being the pinnacle of purity, of sanity, of composure. He loved her for being _attainable,_ for being less than perfect, which was perhaps wrong, but it was an undeniable fact. Her tears brought her back down to him, and though he had been their cause, somehow, it seemed to Graverobber that she had chosen to let them do so.

She was all shock and denial, her face revealing every emotion that passed through her, as she tried to free her hands from his iron grip. “Very funny. Now let me go.” It didn’t surprise Graverobber that she didn’t believe him, that she thought he was being sarcastic. He knew her too well to be shocked by how little she thought of herself, and she knew him too well to believe him to be serious.

As he released her slender fingers, he allowed his expression to alter, revealing all of the earnestness behind his words. “No, I mean it.” This time the sincerity was enough to sink into her, forcing her to come to terms with the notion that her face, however puffy and streaked it was, held no aversions for him.

That having been said, guilt quickly followed these revelations: in him, for making her cry in the first place, and in her, for manipulating him into her presence with tears. Both held their share of self proclaimed wrongdoing, neither aware of the other’s. Graverobber, however, was well used to feeling guilt in his actions towards Shilo, and was not so affected. He did not feel the need to immediately wash away remorse; the stain was too large for him conquer in a moment, anyway. But Shilo was different; her guilt was a needle, and she wanted it cleansed from her conscience before it could further pierce her.

 

* * *

 

“You don’t have to do this, Graves,” she insisted, clinging to the hope that he would push back against her regrets, announce her blameless. Even as she spoke, she denied her words in her mind, begging him to hear her thoughts instead. It was deceitful honesty, both acknowledging her guilt, and renouncing it at the same time. “I’ll be okay.” _Lies, lies, lies,_ her conscience tut-ed.

“I know.” Shilo saw a flicker of something pass through him, but she couldn’t label it. She made many secret wishes upon its origin.

“I just…I didn’t mean to force you to come here with all of my crying…” Her voice trailed off at the end in embarrassment. It was not quite the truth, because she most certainly _hoped_ to bring him there with her tears, but the intention of it was well meant and understood.

“I…”

 

* * *

 

Here was his chance. She was giving him a clear way out, whether she meant it or not. This was where he could retreat, confirm her words and leave…but…but…

_But then I’ll never know if she would have loved me anyway. I’ll never know if I could have had all of those things…her…happiness…_

Graverobber could not deny the selfishness of this statement, but he couldn’t counter it either. He’d been a selfish man long enough to know that, without a valid, important, reason _not_ to do something for himself, he would do it in a heartbeat. Things had changed with Shilo, but not so much that, that basic principle was no longer true. And, with her doe-like, brown eyes shining up at him, he could find no suitable reason not to ease his own suffering, when it could ease hers as well.

Besides, to want happiness, love, that wasn’t a bad thing, right? And how could he betray himself, simply on some noble principle that didn’t even really apply to him, to either of them, when he had a _chance_ to be with her? He wanted to give her everything she deserved, everything she wanted, even if that wasn’t him, but that didn’t mean he had to withdraw his own submission for a happily ever after. It didn’t mean that she didn’t at least have the right to know that she was the only woman he’d looked at, really _seen_ , in months, that he’d turned away the whores who wanted to trade him for his merchandise with their ragged plastic parts, that he’d slowly begun to wean himself off of that precious blue substance, with the desperate goal of improving himself _for her,_ all of it for her. And now that he’d realized…that he thought…he was in _love_ with her (those words burned every time he said them to himself), she deserved the truth even more.

“I came because there’s something I need to tell you,” he finally relented, allowing the words to burst forth from the deepest parts of his heart, shrouded in the secrecy and darkness that sheltered there. “Actually, quite a few things.” His gravelly, deep voice came out sounding far more apprehensive than he’d meant it to, and the dreaded change he’d been fearing in the back of his mind occurred: Shilo’s face softened. Always, she was worried about him, concerned about _his_ well being, when really she should be running headlong in the other direction, knife ready to pin him to the far wall should he attempt to follow her. But she never did have any wisdom regarding her own sanity and stability; the only expressions that she seemed able to make in his presence lately were either lust or sympathy, and neither were good for her.

She reached a tentative hand out for the fingers she had recently escaped, lacing her own through with gentle care. “What is it Graves? You can tell me…well, here comes a big cliché, but, anything.” Shilo laughed easily at her own weathered phrase, looking earnestly into a face that had so long plagued her, with a reassuring smile.

She was extraordinary.

“I heard you crying, and…” here he took a deep breath, swallowing back the fear rising in his chest, “You were calling out my name.”

She tried to explain, to falsify or edit his statement, but Graverobber refused to let her speak. “I _know_ it wasn’t just my name, that you mourned your parents, and-and yourself as well, but I was part of it. And, I’m sorry I eavesdropped on you; it wasn’t really my intention…I just… It was my fault. I hurt you. I thought I should suffer the consequences with you, as well.” His eyes attempted to downcast in shame, but he forced them back on her face, so that she could see the honesty, the remorse etched into his.

“You…you care about me, Shi?” it was half statement, half question, ripe with desperation and longing. This was where everything could change, he lived or died in this moment, and hoped she couldn’t tell how important it was to him.

But she was nodding her head, hope sparking in her fathomless eyes, the reassuring, pleasant smile, turning…well…he didn’t know how to describe it. It was better. “You know I do.”

“Then you need to know everything. You deserve to know the truth about me.”

Fear gripped Shilo, freezing her hand in his, and causing her to draw inward again, a ghost pulling back from those stunning eyes like they were the gateways to hell. And he could see it there, in every muscle of her body, _repo man, repo man, repo man._ She thought he’d betrayed her as her father had; she thought he was one of _them._

He couldn’t take that. “No, no, fuck, Shilo, no! Not that!” His words were loud and jarring, that was just his way, but his arms were gentle as he pulled her shaking form into his lap, smoothing her damp hair back from her face. “I swear; I’d never do that,” he told her more calmly, squeezing her shoulders for emphasis.

“But,” her voice was small and innocent again, like the night she’d told him how she lost her virginity, she was afraid of speaking too loudly, of making her words too real. “But you’re a grave robber, and you’re so good with dead bodies, it would be easy for you to-“

“It wouldn’t be _easy_ for me to become a murderer?! It wouldn’t be easy for me to _slice someone open_ while they were still _breathing_ to steal their test tube organs for the fucking company?! How in the hell could you even think I would do something like that?”

She was almost too quiet for him to hear her in the wake of his brief tirade. “My father did it, and I thought _he_ was a good man. People do what they must to survive.”

Shame surged through him. _I taught her that,_ he lamented. _I tried to harden her to the realities of this world, and now… I’ve already ruined her._

“Shilo,” he placed his jagged hand against her cheek, silently mourning the way his calluses scraped her silky skin. “Your father was a hero. Everything he did was to save _you._ Nathan Wallace became a repo man to protect his only daughter from the world that betrayed him. He may have been wrong, and twisted, and angry, but he was striving for heroism… I’m just the submarket. I don’t…I didn’t… I play for myself, and I don’t offer my hands up to be bound in assassination. I live for the dead and offer the living their deaths in little glass vials; I’m not proud of it, but it’s my life, my _only_ life. I have no reason to be closer to death than I am… I’m _not_ a repo man… I’m just the scum who didn’t tell the girl he’d met in the graveyard the rumors about her father being one.”

Graverobber was still holding Shilo in his lap, but his arms had gone limp around her, and he’d removed the hand from her all too perfect face, drawing back to give her some air, though he, himself, couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t look at her. He could barely even move. He’d revealed the first of many secrets that could change his life for better or for worse, and now he had to await the consequences. Only her voice could free him, condemn him or relieve him, it was her choice and her right.

 

* * *

 

_He_ knew. _All this time he_ knew, Shilo struggled to comprehend. _How could he_ know _?_

Surely this reality was better than him being a repo man, but at that moment, Shilo’s first feeling was betrayal, rather than relief. Graverobber had been her first friend, her first glimpse of reality, of all its wonders and evils, her first confidant, first knight in shining armor, first… and even _he_ had betrayed her. She’d known the world was a cruel place for a long time. She’d met with the king of atrocities, and saw him defeated, just in time for her father to die in her arms. She’d watched the face stealer moon over his pretty victims, felt the sting of the raging beast’s knife, smelled the acrid plastic of the surgery addict, and she’d seen them all fall, one by one, to their own perils. Even the blade of the fearsome repo man she’d called her father had perished before her eyes. Her godmother impaled, her mother a victim of illness and hope, and even herself, the innocent, pure Shilo, was lost with them.

Yes, Shilo knew the world was not a good place, but Graverobber…he’d made her think it could be again. Something about him made her want to scream it, at the top of her lungs, _My life isn’t over! The hope isn’t gone! The world isn’t as dark as it seems in my nightmares and memories!_

He’d made her think that being alive was worth a damn. And then he’d gone and told her _that._

What was she supposed to do? Tell him to leave?

Never.

She couldn’t let him go, even if he’d made a mistake, a _really, big, terrible_ mistake, that could have changed her life if he hadn’t. Things were what they were; she didn’t have the power to rewrite time, and neither did he. The only thing she wanted now was him, all of him, even the biggest flaws and the worst missteps. All she could see was him; the rest didn’t matter. Well, it did, but it didn’t change anything.

And though she hated that he’d kept his suspicions from her, what could he have been expected to do? He was trying to sell her a blue vial, not the truth, not her freedom. He probably didn’t even know who she was until it was too late to tell her. Then when they’d met again in Sanitarium Square, it was all running, and coercing, and teaching, and rescuing. He’d only mentioned Blind Mag because of Amber’s outburst; his purpose was to convince her to buy zydrate. It wasn’t his job to protect her, to help her; that was his choice. He could have put himself into danger and given her the answers she sought, though he barely knew her, but it was likely she wouldn’t have believed him anyway. And Shilo knew Graverobber well enough now, to know that he knew all of this, had turned it over repeatedly in his mind, and abused himself for not telling her anyway.

She was going to forgive him; that much was certain. She was hurt, betrayed, a little angry, but she wasn’t going to hold onto it. She _couldn’t_ hold onto it. Her entire life she’d been waiting for someone to find her, to free her from her tower and show her the world. And he’d come, and been more sarcastic, and garish, and reckless, and endearing, and oddly kind than she ever could have imagined. He was a contradiction in and of himself, but he belonged to her. He made her freedom worth having. So she was going to let the worst revelation of her life, second to that of her father, go, because she needed to be happy. The time for wallowing had passed. Graverobber just didn’t know it yet.

 

* * *

 

“I forgive you,” she rasped, finally looking up from the battered floor where she’d fixed her indecision momentarily. Her eyes were clear and certain, with a sort of hidden knowledge lodged within them that he could not understand.

Even as he heard her words, met her crystalline gaze, he didn’t comprehend it. It crept over him slowly, leaving a paralysis of shock in its wake. He’d spent the last ten minutes of silence preparing himself for the parting words, and when his dismissal did not issue forth from her rosebud lips, all he could do was stare. She had to be mistaken. She couldn’t just _forgive_ him, just like that, like nothing ever happened!

“Graves?” Shilo was edging upon worry once again, taking his face concernedly between her slender palms. “I forgive you, okay? That’s it. It’s over. No more choking on regrets.” The last words were spoken against his dark lips, as she pressed a soft kiss to his surprise parted mouth…This did not help matters.

What was left of Graverobbers precious mind went careening into the far wall as his arms wrapped in an iron grip around her, pulling her as close as she could possibly be, reveling in all the sensations she could evoke in his skin, his mouth, his hair, his blood. Every cell was burning, a raging inferno like he’d never known before, like the most fantastic zydrate high he’d ever experienced, except ten times more exhilarating.

Then it was over. Crashing. Freezing. The cold, real world rematerialized, and Shilo was across the room panting, her hand pressed over her lips in fragile shock and amazement. He was minutely pleased to have elicited such a reaction from her, her brown eyes huger than he’d ever seen them, her breath ragged in the best of ways. But, primarily, disappointment swelled within his mind, not only at the devastating fact that she was no longer pressed against him in a passionate embrace, but because he’d remembered what his conscience, sad, abused, thing that it was, had brought him here to tell her.

“I’ve never…I thought…” she sputtered, trying to regain her bearings.

“What is it, Shi?” He smirked, evading the untold truth for a few more blissfully ignorant seconds.

Shilo didn’t respond immediately, going to sit confusedly on the edge of her bed, fingers twisting in perturbation. “I just thought that would only happen when I was worried we were both going to die,” she blurted, making an expression that had Graverobber biting his cheek ferociously to keep from bursting out laughing.

“And, I take it that’s good?”

Shilo’s eyes twinkled, her face clearing. “Yes, it’s good.” The dazzling smile she gave him made it even more difficult for him to say what he’d come here to say.

But he’d kept her in secrecy long enough, and… _And it’s time,_ he told himself, brow creasing in determination. “Shi…” he began, his voice itself a warning that everything was not all rainbows and butterflies. “There’s something else.”

Her eyes darkened once again, and though he could not see the fearful repo man chant echoing through her head, the way she drew back from him in unease was enough to force him to speak quickly, lest she make any other rash assumptions. “I’m a grave robber, a drug dealer, a criminal in no uncertain terms. I’ve slept in dumpsters, made…scre-… _had sex_ in back alleys, in exchange for vials I could have freely given, with women who were too strung out to know their own names, or too plastic to be recognized by them. I’m the submarket, a street rat, a liar and a thief. _I’m not good enough for you…_ and if you had known any other men, you would never want me.”

The palpable silence he had expected to hang between them when he concluded never came. Shilo responded instantly, rising from her seat on the bed to stand over him in rage. “How could you say that? How could you possibly think that? If I had known other…ugh!” She threw her hands above her head in disgust. “I’ve met men, the monstrous, fiendish ones, the cruel, charming ones, the simple, contorted ones, the slimy, sickening ones. I’ve seen the best and the worst this haunted city has to offer!” Her voice got low and venomous, “I even let some of them fuck me in a back alley, for money, like a whore.”

Graverobber cringed at her barbarous language, the words sounding vile coming from her pure lips.

Seeing his pained expression only made her angrier. “I am _not_ a child anymore, Graverobber, and I don’t need you to protect me from myself, from _you_! If you…if you don’t _want_ me, that’s one thing, but don’t pretend like it’s for my own good and-“

“I have nothing to give you that’s not stolen,” he interrupted, standing, so he could pace in agitation before her. “Do you think we can go on _dates?_ Like a normal couple? I’d be arrested within five minutes, or thrown out immediately, depending on the class of restaurant you’d want me to pay for with my corpse robbed money! And friends? They’re either junkies or criminals, all scum, people you’d hate. Parents? They think I’m dead, and I have no desire to rekindle _that_ relationship just so we can have a big _happy fucking family_! We’d live the rest of our time squatting in this dismal house full of bad memories and death, is that what you want? Is that how you want to waste your freedom?” Graverobber ‘s heart tore as he saw her recoil with these predictions. This was what he intended, what he’d known would happen if he told her the truth about their lives together. It could only end badly, but that didn’t mean it didn’t kill him to watch her realizing it.

But that wasn’t what Shilo was realizing. Shilo had come to a very different conclusion. “Then we have to leave,” she stated plainly, her brown eyes decided as they met his with steely determination.

“What do you mean, _leave_?” he asked, astonishment and caution mixing to form a very unsettled tone of voice. Was she talking about the house, the city, _the island_?

Shilo sighed, a smile creeping into her serious face. “You care about me right?”

“What the hell do _you_ think?” His sarcastic exasperation was a way for him to avoid the question, to keep from saying the words so often in his eyes and actions, but Shilo didn’t mind. She’d seen them enough to understand their meaning now.

“Then the only thing that could stand between us is the curse of this city. Our pasts, our families, _our_ crimes, they all belong here, so let’s leave them. Let’s start over.”

 


	14. Equals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 20 contains a more detailed apology note for update absence, but here I will just say: I"M SO SORRY!

Chapter 14 – Equals

" _Leave_ the  _island_?" Graverobber exclaimed incredulously, still looking as if he did not quite understand what she was saying, though she'd repeated it several times. "Shilo, there's nothing out there but death. It's an endless carrion filled wasteland. Why the hell would you want to go there?" He paused a moment, chewing on the inside of his cheek, then added, "Assuming, of course, that it's even possible. Which I doubt.  _Highly._ "

Shilo sighed. She would never have pegged him for a loyalist, but here he was, buying into the propaganda like any dutifully countryman. And, it would take a lot to change what had obviously been ingrained into him since birth: Sanitarium Island is the world, and the world is Sanitarium Island. Everything else that once was, every town, every city, every remnant of human civilization was null and void. This was a fact. Outside of their "sanctuary" the plague had turned humanity into an elaborate jigsaw puzzle of bones and rubble. At least, that's what they taught in school.

_And that's what Rotti Largo told them to teach,_ Shilo thought bitterly, contemplating for a moment just how far his sadistic influence reached, even after death. How her mother ever pretended to care about that man, she could not fathom. He was the root of every problem she faced in her life: it was his face, his voice in her nightmares, his fingers on her spine, his children who forced her into hiding. He was the one who made her father into a repo man, and it was through his company that her father had obtained her dreaded "medicine." The man was a menace in life, and even now, after he'd fallen to an illness even he couldn't cure, the king still wielded power over the land, over Graverobber's mind, over  _her_ mind. This revelation only strengthened her will to leave, and escape his influence once and for all.

"Why do you think there's nothing out there, Graves? Have you ever  _seen_ the outside world? Have you ever met anyone who has?" Shilo was going to have to lead him through the process of discovering what she had known for many years now (and what she'd  _thought_  he was acutely aware of): the world is rarely what it seems.

"I…no…but everyone just  _knows._ It's a commonly accepted fact of life. We isolated ourselves in an attempt to keep the plague from reaching us, and after recovering the population with GeneCo's transplants, never resumed contact with the outside world because  _there's nothing out there._ Everyone died! They didn't have synthetic organs to save them!" Graverobber's insistent, mindless lecture bothered Shilo extremely. She liked that he was a rule breaker, a criminal. He was everything that she hadn't known or thought to admire before her emancipation, and watching him be consumed by the political bullshit made her stomach twist painfully.

"And who dictates what is and isn't a fact of life?" Shilo asked, her voice cool and even, with a forceful edge. She needed him to understand this.

"What do you mean? We do," Graverobber replied with uncertainty, pushing a hand back through his tangled locks in unease.

Shilo sighed. "I never would have thought  _you,_ of all people, would buy into the 'Sanitarium Island, the universe,' line of thinking." She made sarcastic quotation marks in the air with her fingers as she spoke.

His eyes narrowed, half hurt, half angry. "What makes you so sure there's anything worth finding?"

"Because if there wasn't, they wouldn't try to keep us out."

Now this was a conclusion that made some sense to him. Graverobber had never really considered how stringently they prevented castaways because he never really cared. In fact, no one gave the outside world any legitimate thought beyond the force feeding they got at school. There was little interest in a wasteland, especially when talking to a third grader, and by the time they were old enough to want to explore, the world's edges were already defined. No one ever dreamed of trying to leave because everyone, except, apparently, Shilo, had it drilled into their brains since birth that nothing else existed.

But if nothing else existed, why the guards? Why the never ending patrols and flood lights? Graverobber had been almost everywhere, seen every dark alley, every crumbling mausoleum, and every steel strutted watch tower sitting precariously along the channel that separated the island from the outside. Supposedly, they were to prevent contaminated people from breaking the quarantine; that was the claim when they were built in the beginning years. But Graverobber knew more than most about the affairs of their world, and he'd never caught even a whiff of a vessel or incubus trying to float into port. Contrarily, he had heard numerous stories of "insane" people being confined to psychiatric care after a violent incident involving an attempt to cross the channel…

_Holy fuck,_ he thought, as the realization she'd been dancing about finally hit him.  _There's a world out there worth seeing._

Looking up at her with new, aware eyes, Graverobber gave her the most heartbreakingly perfect grin. He'd gotten it.

_Equals,_ she mused, remembering a rather desperate conversation they'd had once on his treating her like a child. And now, here she was, teaching him that his world was far bigger than he knew. Shilo saw in his face that he recognized the change in their relationship, and marveled at it, as she did.

Finally,  _finally,_ they could have a chance at this, after all the angst and uncertainty, they finally understood each other.

Graverobber offered her his arm with a sarcastic flourish, his smile unfading. "Allow me to show you the world, my lady?" he joked, though she saw through it, to the truth of what he was saying. He was willing to leave everything behind, everything he knew, his entire world, for her.

She linked arms with him, returning his smile with a dazzling one of her own. "Of course," she answered, the only words she could possibly say at this point.

_Of course._ They were words that the two of them should have known all along.  _Of course_ he would fall in love with her, beautiful, strong woman that she was.  _Of course_ she would love him just as fiercely, for the kindness and rebellion he embodied. They were obvious, predictable, and foolish. And  _of course_ they didn't know how ridiculous they were being until they thought they'd lose one another. Their lives together were marked by a series of moments where they saw the truth of what was between them, and ignored it, in favor of a more "plausible" explanation.

So  _of course_ the only conclusion to their romance was the least plausible course of action, the one least likely to favorably succeed. But each, in that moment, knew that they would be damned to a life of utter misery if they did not at least die trying to ride off into the sunset together. So of course the daring and danger required simply couldn't be helped.

They were in love.


	15. A Haunting Past

Chapter 15 – A Haunting Past

It had been almost a week since they agreed to leave the island, and preparations were well under way for their departure. Graverobber had contacted some of his old clients who worked down by the docks to find a ship willing to carry them, trading vials of Z in exchange for their silence on the issue. Shilo didn't like that he was dealing again, he could tell, but it was necessary. She wanted off the island, and the fastest way to do that was to get in touch with his old contacts and wave around his old wares. Whether or not either of them felt particularly good about it wasn't the point; freedom came with a few prices.

Shilo had been going through things in the house, sorting out what they should and shouldn't take with them. Most of the appliances, weaponry, and medical equipment was being sold in exchange for dried food, water purifiers, durable clothing, and packs big and sturdy enough to carry all of it. They had no idea what to expect on the other side, so they were preparing for the worst case scenario. It could be months before they discovered another civilization, and Shilo was determined to keep them alive until then.

_She's certainly read enough about it,_ Graverobber thought with a smirk. The night after he'd agreed to leave with her, she'd purchased every survival book she could find. Considering the society they lived in, they were hard to come by, and were considered antique at best. Most were barely decipherable they were so aged and abused, but she poured over them anyway, copying the information she found most useful into a detailed journal she would be bringing with them.

One night he'd woken up to a loud thumping noise, and found her still awake, at three a.m., copying diagrams of harmful and edible plant and insect specimens. She'd met him with a sheepish smile, her eyes tired and ringed in dark circles, motioning to a few haphazard volumes on the floor.

"I accidentally fell asleep while I was writing," she explained. The other unsteady stacks surrounding her had confirmed that this was an entirely plausible scenario, had her head fallen the wrong way.

He'd simply nodded, scooped her up, much to her dismay, and carried her to bed, refusing to let her return to her work no matter how much she protested.

She'd fallen asleep on his chest within minutes.

It was a few days after that that he set out before Shilo woke up to meet with a captain of one of the very few fishing boats on the island. He hated leaving the house while she was still asleep; he felt like he was leaving her vulnerable, like he should stay and keep watch until she awoke. But she'd been up half the night again with her obsessive preparations, and he refused to wake her to ease his nerves alone, so he was travelling with a great uneasiness in his stomach.

_She'll be fine. She can take care of herself,_ Graverobber told himself, trying to clear out the images of her being dragged away by various enemies from his mind.

He walked with a deep scowl, his imposing form already enough to make the street trash skitter on a regular day. He was used to that, but the look on his face _that_ morning was enough to clear even the half coherent zaddicts from his path.

A smirk cleared away his harsh expression, as he thought of what Shilo would say if she were with him.  _She would just_ love  _this,_ Graves thought, casting a menacing glare at a particularly curious alley walker. The boy immediately turned in the other direction, setting off at a pace that could definitely be considered fleeing.

Graverobber chuckled dryly, enjoying the power. It had been a long time since he'd played that role – king of the submarket. He didn't realize that he'd missed it until then.  _And now someone else will take my throne, my domain, my show._ It was strange; holed up inside Shilo's house, this world hardly seemed to matter, all that mattered to him was her, but now standing in the midst of the scum he used to serve, used to  _rule_ …it would stick with him. He almost wished he hadn't come through there, so that he could've left without knowing he felt hollow. Now that knowledge would haunt him.

Someone else running the submarket, his world, it was sickening.

"What's the matter Graverobber?" The question was hushed, brushing his ear like the lips that once uttered it had. He spun around, searching for the girl to match the voice, the attitude…a girl he knew very well was dead.

He was alone in the alley. The dumpster to his left was empty, save the rotting stench of garbage and a few rats, and he could see far enough in each direction to be certain that no one could've snuck up on him and escaped untraced. Yet the snarky laugh, the breathy sigh, the smell of perfume and plastic, swirled around him.

"God damn it, Amber! You can't be fucking serious!  _Haunting_ me?" Graverobber believed in ghosts, which was a rather dangerous thing to do in his line of work, but when you'd seen the things that he'd seen… Well, sometimes the least likely explanation is the only one that makes sense. That was the case here, and he was comfortable enough with the idea of the other side not to be too surprised by it.

The laugh echoed around him again. "Just checking in on an old friend," the breathy voice replied, sounding just as confident and callow as ever.

"Well, as you can see, I'm just peachy." Graverobber did a little spin to demonstrate his peachiness, sarcastic smirk plastered on his face to cover up the truth threatening to shine through. He'd kind of missed her.

"Don't lie to me, bitch. I can see right through you now."

"Charming as ever, Sweet."

The ghostly laughter sounded off the alley walls. "I missed you, Graverobber… Even if you are a thieving little fucker most of the time." She sounded oddly…repentant? Those words alone would be a great feat for Amber to utter, much less to actually  _mean._  Did dying really change a person  _that much_?

He was shocked into replying truthfully. "I sort of missed you too." This was something he would never have admitted to in real life, but she was dead, and this could be all in his head, and she already claimed to be able to see through him, so what was the harm? "Even though you're a dirty little scalpel slut most of the time," he added, remembering their relationship was not nearly so pleasant.

"Oh please, do go on," she purred at him, her breath tickling the side of his face in a very real way. He tried to keep from cringing away from the ethereal touch, but hearing her voice, feeling her breath, and knowing she wasn't actually there was alarming. It took great effort for him to remain still as he felt her hand caress his neck, her fingernails digging into his flesh cruelly when she didn't elicit any response.

He shrugged away from the contact. "Sorry, Sweet, but I have things to do, people to see…"

He started for the alleyway opening, still headed to meet the captain by the docks. "People like Shilo Wallace?"

The question stopped him dead.  _How in the hell does she know about Shilo?_

"How do you-"

"I'm a fucking  _ghost,_ Graverobber. Get some God damn perspective." Amber let out a huffy snort, just like she used to when he'd cut her off or threaten to call her father's goons. It sparked a small smile in the midst of Graves' heavy grimace.

"Well excuse me for not knowing all of the  _ghost_ rules."

There was a brief pause, and Graverobber wondered if the episode had ended, if she had gone. He was surprised by the disappointment he felt at the prospect of her leaving; it was an abundantly strange day.

"So, are you head over ass for her, or what?"

_Nope, still here,_ he thought wryly. "Head over ass?" He cocked an eyebrow at the alley wall.

There was another pause, and then, "Oh, I forgot you can't see me. I'm shrugging my shoulders."

He laughed again. "If that means what I think it means, then I guess I am."

"A ghostly grapevine tells me that you're planning on running away together."

"Yeah…"

"Some bitch." Amber was obviously still bitter about the whole, her father trying to give his company away to a girl he barely knew instead of his own children, thing, but taking that into account, along with her past disposition, she'd taken it all surprisingly well.

"Well, I really do have to-"

"No, wait!" Amber's voice held an unusual level of indecision, desperation. "I…Shilo should know… Just go to the Tavris Building, room 73C. Dr. Henry Crane lives there. Ask him what happened to Shilo's mother."

"Tavris Building. Room 73C. Got it."It seemed like an odd request to so readily agree to, but Amber obviously had information about Shilo's mom that she didn't want to or couldn't share herself, which meant he owed it to Shilo to figure out what it was. He just hoped it wasn't something further slandering her father.

_Because that's just all she needs right now,_ Graverobber thought with sarcasm. "Thanks Sweet, take care of yourself over there. Do lots of ghost Z for me." He shot the alley a wicked grin before setting off again towards the dock yard.

Amber's voice followed him all the way out, a strange urgency entering her words, a seriousness he wanted to escape. "You bet your ass, I will. But be careful, Graves, Daddy still has power left in this city."

" _And don't let Shilo anywhere near the old opera house."_


	16. The Wrong Moment

Chapter 16 – The Wrong Moment

Graverobber had been behaving rather oddly ever since he got back from the docks. He'd told Shilo that everything had gone smoothly with the ship captain, money had changed hands, a few idle threats were made, and everything was set in that department…but she felt like something was wrong. His eyes looked weary, as if he was carrying a great weight he hadn't had the previous night.

_Did I do something?_ she wondered, skimming over the events of the past few days. She'd stopped them from having sex, yet again, but that seemed unlikely to elicit this kind of moodiness. Well, at least that morning, considering he'd been in a fine state of mind after she'd pulled away from him to reclasp her bra the previous night. He'd laughed at the withering look she'd given him, holding up his hands in a mock surrender as she slipped back into her night shirt.

Once she was comfortable again, he'd immediately pulled her back into his arms, and they'd spent a good half an hour talking about what the world might be like outside of the island. He'd fallen asleep, his cheek resting on her head. If her life had been a movie, his contentment would have been sickening to her, but as it was, she almost couldn't stop smiling.

The almost came in right about then, when he was hiding something from her. After the fourth time he'd dodged the question, she was not smiling. Whatever it was, it was bad.

"Graves," she began, sidling over to where he was patching a hole in one of his few shirts. He sighed tiredly, as if he knew what she was going to say, and Shilo was certain he did, so she tried a different approach. "Here, let me do that." She plucked the needle from his large, callused fingers, plopping down on the floor beside him and pulling the tattered clothing across into her lap.

"Just because we're together, doesn't mean you have to start acting like some obedient housewife." Graverobber raised an eyebrow at her, his smirk contagious.

"Do you really see me as the  _obedient housewife_ type?"

His expression relaxed, and he leaned his head against the cabinets behind him. Shilo couldn't fathom why he so often preferred the kitchen floor to the actual, legitimate table located so nearby, but she often found him sprawled across it, head lolling contentedly against a row of peeling grey drawers, whatever he was working on scattering the floor around him.

_Maybe that's it – the legitimacy,_ she realized, eyeing the spindly white piece of furniture in the corner. It did have a certain…familial aspect to it. Maybe it scared him, maybe it was  _too_ homey.

Graverobber chuckled, a rough edge to his voice, interrupting her thoughts. "No, no, I can't say I've ever categorized you as  _that._ "

"And what have you categorized me as?" she breathed, leaning into him, sewing forgotten.

He laughed again, lifting his hand to brush her cheek. "Beautiful, strong, brave, reckless, pure…jailbait."

Shilo punched him in the arm, laughing as she quickly followed the assault with a soft kiss on his cheek.

"Mine," he finished the list, looking into her eyes with a possessiveness that would have been alarming, had she not known him so well. He wasn't controlling; that wasn't what he was trying to tell her. He was trying to tell her that despite the fact that he would probably never utter the words girl and friend, they were together, and he belonged to her as much as she belonged to him. And he was never letting her go.

_Hell, he's following me to the ends of the Earth._

She placed her hands on either side of his neck, meeting his eyes without awkwardness or embarrassment. "That's a pretty good list."

The corner of his mouth quirked up in acknowledgement. "Nothing compared to the real thing."

She laughed off the compliment like she always did, but she could tell he knew he'd gotten through to her. That was the thing about being with Graverobber; he saw through her. And though that made her crazy sometimes, other times it was the only thing keeping her sane. Somehow, he always knew what she needed, whether she wanted him to or not.

She leaned in to kiss him again, knowing he would read the silent 'thank you' in her lips, in her smile. It was a sweet moment, a simple, endless moment that she wanted to capture and stuff in the pages of a book to preserve it forever. She knew moments like this were short lived, that the truth would come out of him sooner or later, the past would catch up with them, time would chisel them away, or the world would simply reject their happiness. Things would change, one way or another, and though she was hoping for the best case scenario, she couldn't count on it.

"What's wrong?" He pulled away, holding her at arm's length, his eyes scrutinizing. It was like he could taste the bittersweet feeling she had.

_Damn it._ "Nothing," she lied, not wanting to explain the little fears she held, not wanting to alert him to the possibility of failure, if he didn't already see it looming on the horizon.

"Shi." He sighed her name, seeing right through her once again. "Talk to me."

" _You first."_ She raised her eyebrows, indicating the secret they both knew he was keeping about his trip to the docks.

He sighed again, leaning his forehead against a nearby cabinet, pounding it against the thin wood a few times in frustration. "Why does everything always have to be so hard?" The question was one she'd asked herself several times, but she never seemed to have an adequate answer.

"I don't know." She removed one hand from his neck, using it to tuck a stray hair behind her ear, sliding the other up to his face, and turning it so that he was looking at her. "But I know, whatever it is, we can handle it.  _Together._ " Her eyes were earnest, meeting his with a sincerity she hoped would affect his resolve.

He shook his head, breaking the contact. "No, not this time. Not  _this._ " His face was closed, his mouth pursed, tense, unyielding. What could possibly affect him like this?

"Graves, what  _is_ it?" She was growing a bit desperate, her eyes filling with concern, fear.  _That_ at least, seemed to have some sway on Graverobber.

"It's not what you're thinking. We're not in danger," he told her flatly, drawing further from the reach of her searching gaze.

"I don't understand."

"I don't want you to."

Then something occurred to Shilo, the only other possibility, the one thing he couldn't tell her. She tried to conceal her horror, tried to steady her words as she voiced it. "Is it…did you…is there someone else?" Her voice cracked at the end, and she swiftly covered her face with her hands to hide the embarrassing tears that were quickly overwhelming her.

He didn't jump to deny it, he didn't gasp or gawk, he barely even moved. Then she felt his hands wrap gently around her wrists, parting the barrier between them. He looked into her eyes, brimming with tears of shame and hurt as they were, and let her, for just a moment, see inside of him. The clouds parted as she stared into those hazel eyes, and she saw, plain as day, the truth written on his soul.

_No, you idiot, there's no one else. How could there be? There's never been anyone else like you. You're the only one I see. You're the only one who goes through me without even trying._

She could almost hear the words echoing through her head, and they resonated there, even after he shut the window, and put the mask back on. She didn't need him to tell her out loud. Words were less than that; that was…more than everything.

* * *

And even though  _he knew_ that, he said it anyway, because he wanted to, because he'd finally realized he could, lounging on the kitchen floor, a holey shirt crumpled beside them, peeling paint his staunch companion. If he could let her into his head (he'd already let her into his heart), then he could say the words that burned his throat every time he thought about uttering them. He'd already told her he'd do anything for her, now just one more thing, one more thing she already knew, one more thing she didn't ask for, didn't need, but he wanted to give to her anyway. It was one of the few things that was his to give.

"I…" He looked down at their hands, where they'd fallen, twined together, a bridge between them in the dirty linoleum floor. This was not the place for this, this was not what she deserved, but it was what she had chosen, what she  _wanted._ And if Shilo wanted him, she had him, grimy kitchen floor or no.

"I love you," Shilo blurted, apparently unable to contain herself for  _two more seconds._ She'd said it, first, beat him to the punch with her damned big mouth… God, he loved her.

"The hell, Shi?" He threw his hands up in exasperation. "That was  _my_ line!"

She looked mildly confused, a half smile plastered on her face to hide the gears trying to process what had just happened. She'd expected shock, but not this.

"Sometimes you are  _so_ infuriating," he fumed, crossing his arms like a petulant child.

She narrowed her eyes, finally seeing through him. "I love you too, asshole," she smirked, climbing into his lap, and wrapping her arms back around his neck.

"There you go again, stealing my thunder!" His mock anger was waning, as she got closer and closer to his dark lips.

"You still haven't said it yet, you know," she informed him, her nose brushing softly against his.

"Well  _you_ ruined my moment." He glared at her, hazel eyes twinkling. She saw the joy beneath the charade.

_She loves me._ It was written all over his snarky face, his mask couldn't hide that.

"Well  _I'm_ sorry, but that doesn't mean it's not  _your_ turn." She shoved him playfully with one hand, not removing her other hand from the back of his neck, where her fingers were tangling quite distractingly in his hair.

He grinned wickedly at her, leaning in close to her ear, brushing her jawline with his lips as he went. He nipped her earlobe with his teeth, kissing it softly in apology after making her jump. He could feel her body quivering beneath his touch, and it made him smile. At least  _he knew_ she wanted him, in every way, even if she was denying herself  _that_ one for the time being. "And I fully plan to live up to my end of the bargain," he whispered, watching with pleasure as the shivers resonated down her spine. "When you least expect it."

Shilo pulled back suddenly. "Seriously? You're going to leave me in suspense?"

"I wouldn't quite call it  _suspense,_ " he chuckled. She shoved him again, this time a little more forcefully, crossing her arms afterwards as he had done moments before.

"Grrr, I  _hate_ you!"

" _Actually-"_

"Oh, fuck off."

"Only if you help me."

Shilo shot him a death glare, and he held up his hands in mock surrender. "Hey, you're the one who started this whole thing. If you had just waited two more seconds, we'd both be perfectly smitten." Her only response was to change the death glare to a  _withering_ death glare.

"Would it help if I said I got ice cream from that place you like?"

She was silent for several moments. "Yes," she spat reluctantly.

He laughed again, getting up from his spot on the floor to get her a bowl. "Do you want chocolate syrup?" he asked, looking over at her from around the open refrigerator door.

"Yes," she admitted, still acting the part of a pouting child, which ironically only made him love her more. Graverobber thought it all was adorable.

_The heck is wrong with me? I'm so screwed up,_ he realized, still beaming across the room at Shilo.  _And I'm…happy about it._

"Hey, Shi?" He didn't look up from the ice cream he was scooping, but he knew she was still glaring petulantly at the floor.

"What?" she pouted, somewhat annoyed by all the ice cream questions. He already  _knew_  how she liked her ice cream.

"I love you."

She suddenly smacked the floor beside her with both hands. "God  _damn_ you, Graverobber!"

He raised an eyebrow. "I take it you're happy?"

She smirked, crossed the room and kissed him, long and slow, knowing she was making his head spin, and enjoying that knowledge immensely. He could taste the joy on her tongue, feel it sparking off of her skin when he put his hand on her waist, see it radiating from her face when she finally broke their lips apart.

"Ecstatic," she answered, leaning in to kiss him again.


	17. The Color of Darkness

Chapter 17 – The Color of Darkness

He leaned his head against the foggy mirror face, taking a deep breath of the swirling steam left behind by his shower.

_I have to tell her,_ Graverobber thought, spreading the fingers of his fisted hand against the glass, and dragging a craggy handprint down the surface. He looked into the gap he'd made, staring into his own eyes.

His irises were dim in the muted bathroom light, matching his brooding mood. They reflected back at him, a portrait of how he saw himself – he'd always thought his eyes were the color of darkness. They were deep, mysterious, containing hidden colors that those unfamiliar with the night would never see. They were a wall between himself and the rest of the world, an armor, a lie…

But looking into them now, he did not see any of the wry nightwalker who's mask he so frequently wore. The eyes he met were cold, hard, and brittle: the eyes of a masquerader who's façade was at its tipping point. It was almost as if the secret was cracking him open from the inside, his form breaking like an egg.

And he'd told her he  _loved_ her.  _Love,_ the four letter curse word he'd never dreamed he'd speak, never dreamed he'd  _feel._ And he was  _so happy_ about was unfathomable.

Because he was still strangling the knowledge that could bring it all crashing down around him.

He wanted to run.

_Not that it'll do me any good,_ he realized, turning away from his reflection and running a frustrated hand through his long, multicolored locks.  _I'll be twice as miserable away from her._

His response to danger, to attachment, to anything that could potentially harm him had always been flight. He wasn't a fighter, (he never saw the sense in standing your ground merely to get your ass handed to you) so when the going got tough, he got going. There wasn't any hesitation, any remorse, but all that had changed with Shilo. He'd never be able to run again, not without her.

_God damn me._ He pounded a fist into the bathroom counter, growling as pain shot up his arm. Rubbing the abused hand, he turned back to the beaded surface of the mirror. He looked at himself again,  _really_ looked, and saw exactly what he'd feared.

She'd changed him.

He was not the same man he'd been when they met, not by far. His face was brighter, fuller, cleaner, stronger. He wasn't wearing his makeup, and hadn't been wearing most of it for a long time. There was a set to his lips, which were still dark even without the added color, that was decidedly better than it used to be. The hollows of his cheeks were no longer filled with hate and bitterness, his eye sockets were no longer sunken by zydrate abuse; he was fulfilled.

But what had come with that fulfillment?

His eyes were no longer sunken, but they were torn and cracked with kept secrets. His face may be brighter, happier, but inside he was roiling with guilt and uncertainty. And somehow along the way he'd lost the ability to run from danger; if it was a fight or flight situation, he was now a man who had to do battle. He hated that. He may have been unsatisfied before, but he didn't  _know_ he was. He was perfectly content not being aware of what he was missing out on in an ordinary life, an ordinary relationship. He'd  _enjoyed_ his job, being a salesman, a showman, the submarket. It was a point of pride.  _That_ Graverobber delighted in secrets, loved to watch the truth unfold from afar.  _That_ Graverobber never worried about what would happen when those secrets were revealed; he only cared as far as it helped him, or proved entertaining. He never considered the involved party's  _feelings._

But he was a new man, and it was far too late to go back to the old ways, not that he even wanted to. As much as he resented the transformation, he would never choose the old him over her. Hell, he didn't even know if he could choose the old him over the  _new,_ she'd become such a part of who he was.

Was that okay? He didn't even know. He felt a little insane for even asking the question, but then he was going a little insane. She'd driven him past the point of his sanity, where he could leave the city, where he could love her. He'd been losing his mind for so long, he'd hardly noticed it.

And now…

What could be done? She was under his skin, in his blood, stitched over all the broken places inside of him. She'd made him  _whole_ in a way he hadn't even known he could be.

There was nothing to be done.

He loved her… which meant he owed her more than enough respect to bring forth the latest secret.

"Shi?" he began.

* * *

 

They walked down the dimly lit street as one, though they did not touch. Their bodies hovered slivers apart as they moved through the shadows, night and day, a beautiful twilight in a forsaken concrete forest.

The air was stale with the smell of decay, sullied human life, emanating most strongly from the haunting onyx of the side alleys and the gaping mouths of sewage drains. A pale half moon swelled through the smoggy evening sky, casting a bleak, gray glow over the scene, and making the intrusive blare of the floating screens above the city even more unbearable, as their light was not even useful in guiding one's way that night.

The GeneCo complex loomed behind the silent pair like an imposing gargoyle, poised on a spire up above, ever watchful. The neon light from the great sign at their backs certainly nagged at their senses like they were being watched, but neither criminal looked back, instead fixing their eyes on their goal.

The Tavris Building was a great, misshapen tower, twisting its unsteady way into the city's sky scape. It lay on the far end of Sanitarium Island, opposite the residential areas, so that one had to skirt the heart of GeneCo to reach it. Vaun Tavris, who commissioned the structure, was once a wealthy executive, like Rotti Largo, and mayor of the island, up until he and his empire were killed by the plague. His building, which had been erected several years prior to his death, remained his only lasting achievement, although it's foundation proved to be massively unsteady, causing the building to lean first to the left, then once that side was fortified, to the right. This imbalance in construction resulted in a rather mangled square structure, that rose into the air in an almost zigzagged line, the original bricks used to build it filled and patched all the way up, leaving it with a speckled appearance.

Tavris was one of the great oddities in their culture, and served as a focal point for the wealthy and abnormal. Having been adequately saved from collapse, it housed all of the high end magazines, newspapers, design firms, and more on the island. But at this time of night, few of the many refitted windows were lit from inside, as most of the companies had concluded their work hours prior. However, Shilo and Graverobber were not there to meet with a design firm or magazine editor, and they cared little for the apparent desertion of the lobby. In fact, they preferred the empty silence.

They made their way to a service staircase in the back of the building unhindered, mounting the stairs up to floor C, where Amber's instructions had led Graverobber the previous week. A long hallway of stylishly marked doors proclaiming all types of high end plastic surgeons led them to room 73, a plain door, marked with two, simple nameplates:

**Dr. Henry Crane &**

**Dr. Nathan Wallace**

Shilo blinked three times in perplexed silence at her father's name carved into the gold nameplate, a little discolored and dusty from lack of care, but still clearly and unmistakably visible.

"The  _hell_ ," was her only comment, whispered under her breath at the engraved letters.

Graverobber gave her a few moments to adjust to the new information, and then reached past her and turned the brassy doorknob, allowing the heavy, oak portal to swing slowly open. The two cautiously crept into a shadowy waiting room, lit only by the eerie moonlight of an uncovered window, and shut the door behind them. Immediately after they did that, an overhead light flooded the room, and Graverobber had to press his hand over Shilo's mouth so she couldn't scream in surprise. It was an automated system, having sensed the movement of the door; Graverobber had been through there before and now knew what to expect.

He smiled apologetically at the dark haired woman beside him, as he removed his hand from where it swallowed her small, pale face. She nodded her understanding, motioning that they should proceed.

He did not waste time, immediately opening the door behind the receptionist's desk and leading her through a short hallway containing a few small examination and operating rooms, to a storage room containing a large fridge where she assumed blood transfusions were stored. Shilo furrowed her brow as he heaved open the steel door of the industrial size refrigerator, not understanding what he was getting at and unable to see much through the blackness.

She motioned for the flashlight he'd brought and he pressed it into her waiting palm carefully. Shining the light into the fridge, she saw what she'd expected: bags and vials of blood and medicine. She turned a quizzical look on her compatriot.

Graverobber motioned for her to look closer, so she did. And, squatting down in front of the bottom row of vials, she finally understood why.

Across each of the small labels encompassing the caps of the test tubes, in a slanted, cramped hand, was the name "M. Wallace."

Shilo's eyes bulged and she stifled a gasp.

"Look at the ones above those," her companion ordered in a low, urgent whisper.

An equally arrayed collection of test tubes occupied the middle rack of the large freezer, except these were marked with the name, "S. Wallace," in the same hurried handwriting that had been occupying the ominous squares of her meticulously kept charts her entire life.

They had found her father's laboratory.


	18. Understanding

Chapter 18 – Understanding

"I don't understand," she insisted firmly, though understanding was welling up in her dark eyes, reflecting the handwriting from the medical binder she was clutching like a lifeline.

"I think you do, Shi." He'd said it gently, but she still flinched as if he'd hit her.

Grimacing, she flung the binder to the floor. "No, no, this can't be right!" Her hands clutched at her ebony hair, expression twisting in a long buried pain Graverobber recognized. "He said it was an accident," she whimpered, eyes filling with tears.

"No, baby," he caught the tearful woman against his shoulder with an ease he'd never imagined would be possible for him. He didn't even think, didn't hesitate to comfort her. "You're not seeing the whole picture."

She clutched at his jacket, voice straining along with her mind. "What do you mean?"

"Dr. Crane confirmed that your mother was poisoned," he began slowly, pausing to kneel and flip back to the appropriate page in the discarded chart: Marni Wallace's chart. At the bottom of a largely useless page of figures and data, there was a brief note in a foreign handwriting.

_Synthetic poison. No traces of N's cure._

"Assuming these are notes from testing her blood after she died, which is what they look like, and assuming N is Nathan Wallace and that all of the data in the other three binders like this is also what it looks like, which is work towards a cure, then the bigger question is…?"

"Why wasn't the cure present in her blood," Shilo said slowly, her eyes sparking with a new intensity Graverobber was somewhat familiar with. Rage. The pieces had finally all clicked into place. "It was him, wasn't it?" her small voice was quiet and cold, harder than he'd ever heard it.

Graverobber knew by the level of hatred in her tone exactly who she was referring to, and nodded, eyes inscrutable. "I think so."

"I will  _kill_ that son of—"

"You already did that," he pointed out, interrupting her fury mid-curse. Shilo snarled at him in irritation, her face twisted in a mask of pain she was valiantly trying to conceal beneath her anger.

In that moment, Graverobber wished he could resurrect Rotti Largo and shoot him himself, just to watch the light go out of his eyes. He hadn't had the pleasure of being there the first time.

* * *

After all that, everything that had happened…he'd been pulling the strings from the start.

He'd replaced her father's cure. He'd murdered both of her parents, torturing one in the most grotesque professions until he finally cracked. And she had  _trusted_ him, put her hope in him for freedom.

And all along, it had been the elaborate revenge plot of a  _scorned lover,_ who was just powerful enough and cruel enough to destroy her entire existence. All of the things that could have been…

Shilo lost herself for a moment in the life that had been murdered along with her family. "I just… I never thought…"

Graverobber was holding her again, this time even more tenderly than before, his rough hands stroking her hair knowingly. "He destroys everything he touches. You did the world a service by ridding us of him," he said, pressing his lips gingerly to the top of her head.

"Of all the lies, Graves, this is the bitterest to swallow. What he put my father through, all the pain and the isolation, it was all for vengeance. Not  _fate._ Not _genetics. Wounded pride._ " She was half crying the words into his shoulder by the end of her speech; the shock of the revelation had kept her from truly seeing the extent of how thoroughly she'd been wronged, at first. Now it was dawning on her; he'd taken  _everything_ she was supposed to have, to be.

"Pride has pushed men to do many horrible things," he noted solemnly, having gone still in her embrace. She wondered if he was reflecting on a stain from his past, but was too emotionally drained to ask.

The tears were still running steadily down her face, but she was stubbornly refusing to break down. She pulled away from him, slipping her cold fingers between his stiff ones, and tugging at the tense arm. "Let's go home. I never want to see this place again."

* * *

Shilo lay in the floor of her father's old bedroom, staring at the white stucco ceiling, a deadened look in her eyes.

It was as if all the fight had drained out of her. She wasn't even crying anymore.

Now she was just… existing.

Graverobber looked down at her worriedly, his hair dripping onto the scuffed wood flooring beside her from the shower he'd just taken. He'd almost asked her to join him, but one look at her face told him that would not be a good idea.

"Shi," he sighed, kneeling beside her head. He gingerly wiped some of the sludge off of her face with the washcloth he'd brought with him, noting how her eyes didn't even shift at his touch. Besides the steady rhythm of her breathing, she was a stone.

On their way back from the Tavris building, they'd both gotten thoroughly filthy. It had begun to rain as they followed the side streets back to the crypt that would lead them home, and the GenCops were patrolling the area heavily. They'd been forced to hitch a ride in the back of a garbage truck to avoid an encounter, but because of the weather, the truck bed was more of a gross pool of slime than the usual tolerable bed of debris. By the time they jumped ship at Shilo's front steps, they were both coated in grime.

Shilo's tears were hidden in the rain, but Graverobber knew she had been crying silently the entire way. Once she'd gotten through the door, soaking and dripping mud and decomposed garbage in the front hall, she'd stopped: stopped crying, stopped speaking, stopped moving… He'd removed her outer layers of clothing and carried her upstairs to his bed. Evidently, while he was gone, she'd rolled herself into the floor.

_Probably to keep the sheets clean,_ he thought sourly, swiping the cloth across her chin, recalling how it had trembled as they trudged through the rain. She was thinking of linens instead of thinking of herself.  _Typical._

He'd brought the washcloth back with the intention of wiping her exposed skin clean and forcing her to change clothes so that she could go to sleep, but after several more moments of moving dirt around, he gave up. With a grunt, he scooped her off the floor (turning the damp skin of his arms and chest back to a muddy brown) and carried her across the hall to the bathroom, which was still steamy from his shower. She hadn't shown the slightest hint of surprise at this, and Graverobber was beginning to worry that she'd slipped into some sort of catatonic trance. His solution: setting her in the claw foot tub, clothes and all, and turning the cold water on high.

The screech that came out of her was half startled, half mournful, and when he turned off the chilly blast, he saw that tears were again welling in her eyes. Only now she was shivering uncontrollably.

Graverobber couldn't help but feel a little abashed about his chosen method of snapping her awake, but she  _did_ need to clean up, so that she could relax and not feel even worse in the morning, waking up a slime covered mess. He'd hoped that, once her eyes started moving again, her hands would move to clean herself, and he wouldn't have to do it for her. Not that he wasn't perfectly capable and willing to do so, he just… hadn't seen her naked yet.

And, mercy he  _wanted to,_ but not like that, not when she was too in her head to know what was happening, especially after the way she'd first had sex. He'd violated his pure Shilo enough already; he didn't need to take away her right to be able to show herself to him, add that to his conscience.

But that had become his only choice, it seemed. It wasn't like he was ever going to stop taking care of her because of something like his newfound  _morals._

So he slipped out of the flannel sleeping pants he'd been wearing and sat behind her in the tub in his boxers, reaching in front of him to work her limbs out of the long sleeved black shirt she'd worn. The tight jeans were a bit trickier, but he managed those soon as well, leaving her in a pair of yellow underwear, covered in sunflowers, and a black, lace trimmed bra. Even then, he still thought she was beautiful, though she was silently crying and shivering, and he'd seen her body like this before in better circumstances. That didn't matter; she was always beautiful.

He'd elected to leave her undergarments on, as they had been left mostly unscathed. He hoped that would protect enough of her modesty that she wouldn't try to kill him later, since he was sure she'd be angry. Shilo never thought she needed help anyway, and he knew she wouldn't care for the idea of him  _bathing_ her.

Hell, he didn't care for it much himself, despite his proximity to her bare body.

Once she was properly declothed, Graverobber turned on the faucets for the tub, watching as it filled with warm, milky water and calmed Shilo's chattering teeth. He decided to start by washing her hair, since he figured the dirt would travel downhill anyway, and had grabbed a small cup Shilo had once used to take medicine to accomplish the task. Tilting her head back gently, he let the warm water run down her caked hair, loosening the mud and debris trapped there; the movement was repeated several times until her ebony locks were properly soaked.

She had begun to cry in earnest by then, softly but insistently, as if her grief would not be contained any longer. Graverobber could feel the tremors of withheld sobs as he gently held her in the tub, his hands combing tenderly through her dark hair, lathering it in the shampoo she kept there; it smelled like cinnamon and honey. He tried to ignore the tears, methodically washing and rinsing her body, knowing she would feel better once she was clean and dry and curled up against him in bed. She could cry all she wanted then, he'd decided, he could handle it. But first, there was the task at hand.

He flinched each time he brushed against her breast, or accidentally caressed her at joining of her thighs; as she was facing away from him, it was hard to see what he was doing. He only noticed what he'd been touching by the fabric that met his gently scrubbing fingers, and the little yelp of surprise that interrupted Shilo's crying. It was those accidental touches, however, that seemed to have the most effect on her, and she seemed to calm down a little after each one, as if the surprise of having his hands on her, even if the intention wasn't intimate, was enough to bring her back to reality.

By the time he drained the bathtub, she was no longer crying, and though still not responding to him, her eyes were alert and alive again.

Graverobber emerged from the tub and toweled off his dripping boxers, although he hated the way the soggy fabric clung to him and longed to be rid of it. He retrieved a fresh towel from the closet in the hall and wrapped it around Shilo, pulling her from the tub and setting her on her feet with a sigh.

"You know," he said conversationally, drying off her legs with quick strokes, "now would be a good time to come back to me. Otherwise, I'm going to have to change you out of these." He pulled on the waistband of the soaked, yellow panties to indicate what he was referring to, letting it snap back against Shilo's hip for emphasis. She gasped, but said nothing.

He half groaned, half growled at her silence; since she'd stopped crying, and it wasn't  _so_ inappropriate for him to be thinking about her sexually, her body was driving him crazy, just like it had when she'd woken up from the knife wound. He just wanted to grab those little hips and…

He was a horrible, horrible human being.  _Stop it,_ he mentally slapped himself,  _remember all she's been through tonight._

He slid the towel up her abdomen, trying not to notice the way her breath caught when he ghosted over her breasts. She'd begun looking at him again, clear, dark eyes wide with something he'd never seen there before. It drove him even crazier.

"Shi…" he whined, eyes pleading with her to say something, do  _something,_ so that he didn't have to stand there running his hands over her half naked body and pretend he wasn't dying to eliminate the  _half._

Finally,  _finally,_ she took the towel from him, and began to wring out her hair as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

He breathed a sigh of relief, and turned to exit the room to change into dry boxers.

Her small fingers caught him by the waistband.

A pause followed, Graverobber's eyes bulging as he finally let himself feast on the sight of her body: the curves of her breasts and hips, the flush of her chest, the tremble of her thighs. She looked…  _willing._

_No, no, you're imagining things._

"I-I'm sorry," she said breathily, not sounding at all like herself. "I shouldn't have tuned out like that."

He shook his head at her, not trusting his voice to conceal his thoughts, and worrying his thoughts were going to lead to something else he couldn't conceal.  _This is_ not  _the night,_ he insisted.

"I just felt so  _wrong,_ like my life was all a sick joke, and I wanted to live, for a moment, in world where it wasn't." She had been looking at her feet, the hand with the towel having paused in her hair, white on black, but then she looked up at him, eyes burning with intensity. "But you reminded me what that world was missing, what it would always be missing."

The towel fell to the floor and she stepped over it without a glance, grabbing the back of his wet, tangled hair with one hand and pulling him down to her level. " _You."_

Graverobber wasn't sure if it was just that he'd turned her on, running his hands over her, however well meaning that may have been, or if she was honestly moved by his presence in her life and thought that made up for all the bad things that had happened to her. He thought it was probably a little of both, combined with the fact that she was tired of being sad and feeling broken.

Either way, in an instant, she was kissing him. And he didn't really care why, because her lips were melded to his and her hands were everywhere and she was pressed into him like she couldn't get close enough. It no longer mattered if his thin, wet boxers couldn't conceal his erection because her dainty hand was pulling down his waistband and wrapping around it. It didn't really matter if her bra was soaked through, because it was falling to the floor, modesty be damned. She discarded his boxers for him, and he took off her panties with his teeth, trailing kisses down her body as he did so.

And then she stood before him, in all her glory, and he had to take a step back just to stare. She was. So. Damn. Beautiful. He tried to tell her that, but his mouth apparently wasn't forming many words. The only thing that came out was, "Shilo…"

But she was blushing, trying to cover herself up but pretending she wasn't, and he could tell looking at him below the waist was making her nervous.

"We don't have to do anything you're not ready for," he recited dutifully, sweetly, surprised by the way his thumb brushed her cheek, warm hand enveloping the side of her face.  _Where the hell did_ that  _come from?_ He'd never been that considerate in sexual encounters; of course, this wasn't an encounter. This was  _Shilo,_ and he  _loved_ her. God damn him.

_Please be ready. Please be ready. Please be ready._

"Ok," she breathed, pressing herself into his chest, and kissing his neck. He could feel her heart racing, could tell she was pressed against him to conceal her breasts. And though he wanted to take her right there, on the bathroom floor, he knew she'd be more comfortable in bed, where the darkness and sheets would make her feel less exposed.

"Let's go to the bedroom," he suggested, pulling her up into his bare chest without a thought, her little gasp of surprise sending shivers down his spine.

"I really do want this, it's just…" she began, as he stalked across the hall, but he interrupted.

"I know, and I don't want you to ever think of that again. I want to wipe it from your mind. This will be your first. We'll take it slow," he paused to flick off the light switch. "Until you beg me to go faster," he added with a wicked smirk.

She laughed as he laid her down on the bed. "Oh,  _I_  won't be the one who's begging for more," she teased, pulling him down on top of her.

"Oh, really?" he breathed into her ear, lips and tongue dancing across it.

"Really," she choked out, arching as his fingers found her breast.

"Cause right now you don't look so tough."

Her hand found his erection again, this time more confidently. Graverobber groaned, leaning into her touch as a need he didn't realize was quite so strong coursed through him.

"Who's tough now?"

"Did I say I loved you before? I actually meant you're a—"

"Oh, just shut up and fuck me."

"Yes, ma'am."


	19. Face Your Demons

Chapter 19 – Face Your Demons

She woke up to someone whistling. Shilo had never heard Graverobber whistle before, so it was a bizarre experience; his appearance and attitude suggested he was very much  _not_ the type of person who whistled. But this was a special morning, he'd reminded her.

And she couldn't help but flush with happiness at that, although she pulled the sheet over her head to hide it as he slipped back into bed beside her.

"Care for another go?" he teased, running his hand up the side of her ribcage as she snuggled beside him.

Shilo laughed. "I'm a little sore from last night."

Apparently, all those years of running from GENCops and having sex in back alleys had given him incredible stamina. Shilo couldn't help but let her mouth gape a little just thinking about it; he was so damn  _sexy_ when he was screwing her!

"What're you thinking about?" he asked knowingly, a satisfied smirk enveloping his face.

"Nothing," she said too quickly, darting back under the blankets to conceal her blush.

He chuckled, moving under the covers with her, so that they were nose to nose. "That was  _not_ nothing to me, and I'm kind of hurt that y—"

She pinched him in the arm.

"Ow!"

She laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck fondly. The sigh that escaped her lips was almost contented enough for him not to question it,  _but…_

"What's wrong?"

She sighed again, this time in exasperation. She never got away with  _anything_ when he was around.

"It's just, we're almost ready to go," she explained slowly, referring to their planned escape from the island.

"Yeah, I thought you'd be happy?"

"I am, it's just—"

"You're scared of what we'll find."

"Exactly." Shilo pulled away from him, sliding out of bed, taking the sheet with her like a robe. "And… this is the only place my parents ever existed, and I can see them," she ran her hand down the yellowing wallpaper, "in this house and city. I'm afraid of losing their memories when we go."

He followed her out of bed, wrapping his corded arms around her from behind and letting his chin rest on her head. "We don't have to leave, you know. We could—"

"What? Do  _this_  forever?" she interrupted. "I don't want to hide out and ride around in dump trucks and slink through tunnels my entire life! And I don't want that for you either!"

"But that  _is_ my life, Shilo, that's always been  _my_ life!" He pulled away from her, obviously frustrated by her words.

"Graverobber… you've never known isolation like I have, and I wouldn't wish it on you. I don't look down on the life you've lived, I  _envy_ it. I just want it to be okay for me to miss this place, even though it tormented me." She smiled at him sadly, an old hurt heavy in her eyes.

"I understand," he said softly, turning her and placing a kiss on her temple. "I'll talk to the captain I made arrangements with and we can leave tomorrow."

" _Tomorrow?"_ She was shocked. Why so soon? Didn't he want a little more time?

"If we don't leave now, we never will. You said yourself we're almost ready, so let's  _go._ "

Go. Leave. Sanitatium Island shrinking in the distance. It seemed like a distant pipe dream before, but the reality was looming so close… Shilo felt terrified and thrilled at the same time.

"Okay, let's go."

* * *

The opera house had been abandoned after the genetic opera in which she starred, but not boarded up. In fact, one of the front doors she'd burst from that fated day was hanging off its hinges, leaving the interior of the building open to the elements. Therefore, Shilo was shocked to find the auditorium completely untouched. No graffiti on the walls, no seats ripped from the floor, no holes in the curtains, and most surprisingly, no evidence of squatters taking advantage of the spacious shelter. Everything was just as it had been last she'd seen it, minus the gallery of franticly self absorbed people, plus a fine coating of dust.

She entered the space cautiously, her steps echoing off the high ceilings. The aisle she stood in brought back memories and sensations she did not want to revisit, and she marched down it quickly, ignoring the similarities between this, and her last, trip.

Mounting the stage, she saw what she'd been searching for—a deep brown stain in the scuffed wood grain of the floor, the remnants of blood. Mag's blood. Her father's blood. Rotti Largo'sblood. In the center, the stain was a deeper, more menacing shade, where the reds had mixed together.

She'd been afraid to return there, for so long; there was little reason to be, when she now lived in the house that imprisoned her, slept in her father's old bed with a drug dealer/grave robber, and was praised by the city as the hand that slayed Luigi Largo. Every other trivial fear had been faced down and conquered, all but this.

And if she was leaving that afternoon, she had to first stand atop that stage once more and do battle with her demons. She'd sworn she'd stop running, from everything, and she was determined to keep that promise to herself.

"I killed your son," she told the stale air. There was something ominous about the still silence of the place; it crept under her skin and made her blood cold, and she understood why no one had squatted there.

"And jumped the bones of the only man your daughter ever cared about."

There was something moving around her: the shadows, the silence,  _something_ was stirring, tugging at her clothes and hair ever so lightly.

"I grew strong, and brave, and I discovered your little secrets! I found out what you did to my parents, what my mother's death was really about, and," her voice dropped to a whisper, "I also found the strength to leave all that behind."

The heavy curtains on either side of her began to billow, and she knew he was present. That was the final confirmation; the iciness she felt in her chest when she entered the building had been proof enough to insight her suspicions. It was not like Rotti Largo to simply leave well enough alone, even in death.

"I'm leaving this city," she shouted over the wind that had begun to swirl around her. "And I'm going to  _find_ the world you didn't want us to know existed! Then, I'm going to come back and free  _everyone_  you trapped here!" The wind was rising into a small cyclone, ripping at her hair and eyes; it was becoming hard for her to breathe. All the air was pulling away from her lungs.

She struggled for breath, rasping as loudly as she could, "You can't destroy me anymore! You're  _dead…_ " Black hair spun around her ghostly face as she coughed and wheezed, tears running horizontal tracks from her eyes in the windstorm. "I  _beat_ you."

Suddenly, everything came to a perfect standstill, and she sucked in oxygen greedily for a few moments, before realizing there was a figure standing beside her. Looking up, she did not see the man she'd expected; instead she came face to face with…

Herself.

It was a younger Shilo, covered in blood, holding with shaking fingers a gun she didn't really know how to fire. The fear, anguish, and determination that filled the apparition's eyes were familiar to her real life counterpart; Shilo remembered those emotions all too well, remembered the fateful choice that changed her life forever.

She had been slumped over in her efforts to breathe, but now she raised back up to face herself and the gun the shadow Shilo wielded.

"I'm not afraid of you," she said, staring down the barrel.

The fake Shilo released the gun's safety, which was a little ironic, considering the real one hadn't known how to do that when she had first held the weapon.

The real Shilo laughed, harshly, tauntingly. "I know you won't kill me,  _Rotti Largo._ I've been thinking about your heart for a long time now, trying to figure out  _what_ would possess you to thoroughly ruin my life, and I've discovered the only redeeming quality you have!" There was a sadistic sort of glee in her eyes, as she screamed this at the ceiling.

She thrust a finger into the air, not paying any attention to the gun directed her way. "Your legacy!"

The other Shilo paused, her head tilting to one side, a question within her glare.

"That's right," real Shilo muttered, meeting her twin's eyes with icy determination. "This city, your company, those are your greatest successes. You're a horrible man, but you saved us… And you cared enough about your city to leave it to me, the only person you knew sane enough to maintain what you built.  _THAT_ is why you won't kill me! You still  _need_ me to save your legacy! The only good thing you ever did, the only thing worth being angry about losing when you died!" She pointed emphatically to his stain on the stage. "I'm going to bring GeneCo out of the dark ages."

The shadow Shilo was shaking, an expression of excruciating anger overtaking her features. She clenched the gun like a lifeline. This was much different from the scene that character originated in.

Real Shilo smiled, rubbing in her perceived victory. "Go ahead. Your company's already in ruins. What's one more body on this stage?"

A tense silence followed, and then a slow, wicked smile spread across the imposter's face. It was a look Shilo was certain she'd never had on her real face, and would likely haunt her dreams after. She stumbled half a step backwards, away from the smile; it chilled her bones.

But her fear was interrupted by a very familiar voice, a voice that was supposed to be at home, a voice that shouldn't have known where she was.

"SHILO!"

It all happened in a fraction of a second, but it felt like minutes to Shilo.

Graverobber ran through a door to the left of the stage, shouting her name, and brandishing one of her father's weapons.

Her twin turned, twisted smile broadening, and fired her pistol.

The bullet hung in the air, pulsating, confirming every fear Shilo had felt in regards to her relationship with Graverobber, because she was going to lose him. She reached for him, tried to run and push him out of the way, but she couldn't move quickly enough.

The bullet ripped through his chest and embedded itself in the far wall.

She was already screaming.


	20. Sunrise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My deepest apologies to everyone who has been waiting for a conclusion to this story! I'd completely forgotten that I'd posted An Unlikely Love on AO3, and therefore the last six chapters didn't make it up here with the rest. But all's resolved now, and I hope it was worth the wait. Thank you all for your support!

Chapter 20 – The Sunrise

"NO!" The cry tore from her chest a wave of anguish. She was stumbling forward, tripping over her feet, trying to catch him before he hit the ground. His multicolored hair sprayed around him, the left side thickening with blood at the ends, and he fell back with his arms open wide, weapon forgotten from his slack hands, as if he was embracing death. His eyes were glazed with shock, his mouth still gaping in the shape of her name.

When she grabbed him under the shoulders, and lowered him slowly to the ground, she realized that he was still saying it, her name, over and over in a whisper. "Shiloshiloshiloshilo…"

She wondered, as she ripped his shirt down the middle to expose the wound, if he was surprised; after all, it was her body he saw pulling the trigger. Thankfully, spectral Shilo disappeared the second her bullet left her gun; there was no reason for her to stay. She'd served her purpose by shooting someone Shilo loved.

"Graverobber!" she screamed, trying to snap him out of the trance he was in, muttering her name. His eyes met hers as she pressed her hands over the bullet wound, tears streaming down her face.

"Hey, don't cry. It's a scratch," he breathed, trying to move his arm up to touch her face but being overtaken by a wave of pain. His breath became a pained rasp, shuddering through his stiffening body, and she saw him fading.

"I'm calling them," she sobbed, pulling the pager he didn't even know she still had from her bag. They'd both agreed to throw theirs away a long time ago.

" _No,"_ he croaked. He tried to grab the device away but was too weak. Her hand pressed against his bullet wound was enough to keep him incapacitated.

A clear bell sound went off as Shilo sent the message, the only message sent by those devices – the need for emergency organs. She received a response three seconds later, accompanied by a similar ping.

"They'll be here any minute. Just hang on." She kissed his numbing lips desperately. "Please, you have to stay… I love you _. Please,"_ she whispered, her forehead pressed against his.

It went on like that until his heart stopped.

* * *

Graverobber woke up in a hospital room, very certain that he'd died just a moment before. And, if it wasn't for the black head of hair resting on the edge of his bed, the lack of pain would've convinced him the afterlife was some damn hospital.

But Shilo was there, fully clothed, meaning he was alive.

Meaning the emergency transplant had saved him.

Meaning the pleasant lack of pain that felt so familiar was zydrate – the good kind.

"You're awake."

Shilo was looking at him with a mixture of relief and awe, though the dark circles under her eyes made every expression that crossed her face look a lot like exhaustion. She'd obviously slept very little since he was shot.

"I'm so pissed at you right now," he croaked, taking her hand across the bleached sheet they'd stretched over him. "You shoot me—"

She leaped up to her full height, which was admittedly not very much. "That wasn't me!"

He chuckled tiredly, having known that would get under her skin. "I know. I knew when I saw her what she was.  _Who._ "

"How?"

"Bastard got your eyes all wrong." He cupped her face in a large hand, watching solemnly as the deep, dark irises he knew so well filled with tears.

"I thought you were dead," she whispered, swiping at her cheeks as the tears spilled over. "They tried to revive you for so long, and I thought…"

He smiled sadly. "I'm right here, Shi."

She met his eyes abashedly. "You're disappointed in me." She said it like a fact. "For calling GeneCo."

"Well, we did agree never to let them put any of that synthetic trash in us again…" He looked away from her face, like he didn't want to see if his words hurt her. The irony that Rotti Largo's memory had both shot and saved him was not lost on either of them.

"If you'd rather I killed myself—"

"What?" he interrupted, eyes snapping back to her own.

She looked back steadily, voice calm. "I didn't want to live without you. I made a choice. You would have been furious—"

He interrupted, eyes severe. "Of course I would've been furious—"

"So you can't be mad at me for saving you!" she yelled.

His face softened. "No… I can't." He pulled her closer, kissing away the creases in her brow.

"How did you even know where I was?" she asked, eyes closed.

"I had a hunch," he smirked, kissing her again on the cheek, her dark hair tickling his face.

" _I had a hunch,"_ she mocked him, laughing against his mouth as he moved his lips to hers. He kissed her slowly and longingly, cupping her pale face in his callused hands. It made him weak inside, his need reminding him of what he'd only gotten to do  _once_ so far.

 _That_ would have to change.

But when they pulled apart, she was looking at his chest, where the long incision from his surgery had been sealed. "We'll have to leave as soon as you've recovered. The Repomen will be let loose as soon as they realize we can't pay." He smiled at her use of the word "we."

As soon as he recovered, they would be doing many other things as well, he promised himself.

"As soon as we can," he vowed, winking at her.

* * *

The ship was dirty and smelled of rancid fish, the nets they used to retrieve their catch from the water strewn with debris and bits of flesh and scales. The men were similarly coated, their faces rough and unshaven, their clothes stained from the work.

But they were Shilo and Graverobber's salvation; their captain had agreed to take them across the water, away from the horrors of Sanitarium Island, to a future they could only hope for.

They'd packed what they needed, Shilo's research, everything they could carry on their backs that would help them survive. Dressed in all black, with long overcoats and combat boots, their hair tied back and covered in waterproof hoods, they stood in the morning fog on the starboard side of the vessel.

It was time. Shilo wasn't afraid anymore, not after seeing him bleeding out on the floor. She knew what fear really was, and as long as she had him, safely by her side, she knew she wouldn't experience it again.

Whatever future lay for them beyond the water, she'd waved goodbye to her demons on the shore.

"Free at last," she murmured to herself, leaning back into Graverobber's chest as he pulled her to him from behind, arms wrapping protectively around her.

It was so different from the last time she'd said those words, broken and bloody and fleeing the opera house with her father's corpse behind her. Now, she actually understood what it meant to be free.

What it meant to be  _happy._

They watched the sunrise slowly burn the fog off the water, their breath catching in unison when they spotted the far shore as the mist cleared.

Sanitarium Island was behind them. What did they even call  _this_ place?

"I've never been this far," the captain Graverobber had spoken to rumbled, approaching them. "We're not supposed to sail in sight of the far land. Plague and all." The gruff man raised an eyebrow at the two nightwalkers standing on his deck. "Are ya sure you want to do this?"

Shilo and Graverobber looked at each other, a secret smile between them.

"Absolutely," they said in unison.

 


End file.
